


The Brother's Tale

by LordSenorslowmo



Category: Astral Chain (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Expect the JoJo, Family Feels, Gen, Intelligent Legions, Male Protagonist, Non-Silent Silent Protagonist, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Poor Life Choices, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protagonist Didn't Sign up For This, Protective Siblings, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-12-13 21:47:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21004667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordSenorslowmo/pseuds/LordSenorslowmo
Summary: During a tragedy 20 years in the past, a pair of twins were born, Barret and Akira Howard. Barret, the brother to Akira, was always an upfront boy, always as quick on his feet as he was quick witted, and while Akira may have been the more serious of the two, he has always had trouble expressing how he feels, masking it behind a cocksure attitude and his attempts to lighten grim moods with his ever joking demeanor. Akira, the sister, was always a headstrong girl, always going tit for tat with her brother, and was always one to take things seriously, much to the chagrin of her brother. She and her brother were inseparable, the two of them making their way through their police training with ease, eventually becoming rookies in the police force aboard the Ark. Yet, their fortunes would change one fateful day, when Gates began to open across a highway.





	1. Before the Gates Open

Of all the things he could have been doing, stuck at his desk working his way through the paperwork on his desk, wasn't one of them. Barret couldn't help but sigh, they just had to have a busy day the day prior. Several would-be muggers and at least one fairly decent pickpocket, you wouldn't think it would make a lot of paperwork, but you would be wrong. He had been at this for the better part of an hour, as had Akira, if anything she had more than him, at least he thought so as his pile seemed to be not as tall as her's.

Twirling his pen in hand, he began to work on yet another document. This was something they didn't really talk about in training, the damn near endless amounts of paperwork involved with police work. The thought that the old man needed to do this kind of thing nearly daily made him feel bad for giving him any trouble when he was younger. He felt like this was some kind of cosmic payback for any instance of him being a brat as a kid. Though he may have been exaggerating because he was only halfway done, and he already regretted agreeing with Akira to become police officers.

As always the station was busy, other officers coming and going, all on their own little tasks or going out on patrol. He had hoped that he would get used to these long hours, but that had yet to happen, it was nearly midnight already. He gaze drifted from his paperwork to see Akira arrive back at her desk, giving him a wave as she sat down. Yet, to his surprise, she began to put away the paperwork she had yet to do.

"Hey, if I gotta do this, so do you! You are not ditching it on me like our old science projects." Barret's voice rang in annoyance, getting only a roll of the eyes in return.

"Relax Barry, I'll get it done later, they've got a lot of people going on patrol tonight, and I'm due to head out any minute." Akira's answer had him raise his eyebrow in question.

"I didn't hear about this, what's up that so many are heading out?" Her response now was a shrug.

"No idea, but it has to be something important, and you would've heard about it, but" She pulled at his headset, which was still blaring music. "I swear the Ark could explode and you wouldn't notice."

"So we're do on patrol? I'll catch up with ya, I wanna finish this, only got a few more to go, shouldn't be too long. That way tomorrow I can sleep in, while you are stuck doing yesterday's and tonight's paperwork tomorrow." Once again Akira rolled her eyes at her brother.

"Just don't take too long, I don't want to find you blacked out at your desk when I get back." With that, she walked off, leaving Barret to his work.

Mostly in silence, he began to work his way through the remainder of the paper on his desk. Stopping only when a yawn tore itself from his throat, maybe Akira was right. Going over to Vendor-3, he decided to buy an Alkali-Cocoa, hoping that would give him the kick to finish his paperwork. Throwing the can in the trash, he got back to his desk, and began to finish what little was left. Soon, his desk was cleared of any sign of paper, leaving him resting his head against the table for a moment.

God it all felt like yesterday that Akira had dragged him to the Police Academy. All the training sessions, tests, and all the things one would need to do to become a police officer, all seemed like they weren't but a week ago, it was hard to believe it had been half a year since they joined.

Just before he could nod off on his desk, the station's alarm began to blare, shooting him awake right quickly. The sound got a whole lot more people than him onto their feet. In mere seconds the station all but descended into chaos.

"Attention! All available units are to head to investigate reports of gates opening in Central City, Zone 35! Several Eyewitness reports indicate multiple gates opening within and around the city! I repeat!" Barret didn't need to be told twice, grabbing his X-Baton from his desk, he booked it for the elevators, lucky enough to catch one just before it's doors closed. Joining several other officers inside.

Once reaching the garage, he saw that the vehicles were leaving fast, barely managing to snag a motorcycle, he waited for the doors to open before taking off. Hopefully, he would manage to catch up with Akira in the city, the old man would kill him if something happened to her, hell he'd kill himself if he let that happen.

Akira was strong, but Barret would make damn sure he would back her up, through hell and back.


	2. [STARTUP]: Legions and Chimeras

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Gates begin to open across Central City, Barret frantically drives his way to provide back up to his sister

The whir of the motorcycles engine filled the highway as Barret sped down the deserted road, rocketing passed several crashed and abandoned cars like a blur. At these speeds, he would arrive at Grand Avenue quickly, but judging from the amount of cars, something must have happened along the highway.

His communicator crackled to life, the voice of the HQ Dispatcher coming through, likely on all available channels. "Attention! We've got several eyewitness reports of gate openings in Central City, Zone 36!" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something moving fast towards him, thinking quickly, he turned the bike to it's side and slid, a move that had once had him in the hospital for a month after it backfired, but this time had saved his life as an arrow like blast flew right over him, directly where his head would've been. Quickly righting the bike, he turned it's handles enough to focus on what his old man called a "Filthwing". A kind of aberration, that could fly and also shoot things at him, which he did not find fair.

Thinking quickly he flipped the safeties off on each handle of the bike, and held down the small triggers. A barrage of shots peppered the Filthwing, which soon was reduced into nothingness. Once again the Dispatcher came through the comms. "All Officers, ensuring civilian safety is your top priority." Suddenly several other Filthwings flew towards him, luckily they couldn't lead their shots, letting him evade while positioning himself, holding down the triggers, reducing them into nothing from right to left. Yet, as he destroyed them, more came, firing at him in bursts, forcing him to once again force the bike into a slide to dodge them all before returning fire. "If you see any aberrations, take them out and keep the damage from spreading."

"Repeat! Calling all officers en route to Grand Avenue. Watch out for abandoned vehicles along the highway. The area's been designated Redshift Level D. We've confirmed reports of civilian aberration. We have approval from the UNION to use lethal force on any aberrations. Exercise your best judgement when engaging these targets, that is all" As the dispatcher finished, several more Filthwings flew to engage him, some meeting a swift end at the barrage of bullets from the bike.

Once he had cleared that wave of Filthwings, he heard his sister come over the comms. "This is Akira Howard. I've just arrived on scene." As he swerved to avoid a crashed van, he heard Akira let out a grunt of pain, having him scrambling for his own communicator, yet he couldn't respond immediately as he was forced to drive his bike over an emergency stop sign, giving him enough height to clear the pileup of cars that would've stopped him, quite literally, dead. "HQ, do you read me? There's too many aberrations to count! They've blocked off the entire highway! I'd guess we're looking at multiple gates along the road...it must be spreading to everyone passing through! There's too many to handle, I need backup now!" Once again cut off before he could respond, he was nearly knocked clean off the road by an out of control van, several aberrations waving wildly out of the windows, allow with several burning bottles, which he once again swerved to avoid.

Could aberrations even make molotovs? Let alone, even drive? He'd ask the old man later, if he got out of this, but first things first. "Alright, ya wanna play with fire?" Pulling the triggers, he began to pepper the van with shot after shot, each digging into the van, but it showed no sign of slowing. Until he saw smoke, then bright flames, and it finally stopped as the entire van burst into flames, exploding and flipping end over end. Unluckily for him, it flipped end over end, directly towards him, once again forcing the car into an even deeper slide, he felt the side of his shoe scrap against the asphalt, yet by some ungodly luck, he managed to pull out of the slide more or less alive. "Akira owes me big time for this!"

"This is HQ. We're concentrating our firepower on Central City at the moment. Special Ops Bureau's orders. We will send over whoever we can once things have calmed down. Hold tight until then!" If he knew who the dispatcher was personally, he would've made sure to once he got back to HQ, he had salt instead of sugar in his coffee for the rest of the damn year. Now he was the only backup Akira was getting, spurring him to push the bike even faster then before.

"What!? You've gotta be kidding me!" Once again she let out the sound of pain, if he could grip the handles any tighter, they may have broken from the pressure. "Ah Damnit! Without backup, we're all goners!" Suddenly, she seemed to remember something.

"Barret! Hey, you can hear me right?! Where the hell are you?!" He couldn't help but smirk as he finally had the chance to answer.

"Sorry to keep ya waiting there sis! Things aren't exactly rainbows and cupcakes over on my end!" Coughing for a moment as he took a plume of smoke to the face, he continued. "HQ, this is Barret Howard, I'm inbound of the highway, seems that these aberrations are damn near everywhere. I'm en route to provide assistance for those on the highway over!" Before the dispatcher could respond, Akira did.

"Come on, get over here now! These things aren't the best for conversation!" Barret couldn't help but let out a barking laugh as several more Filthwings flew towards him.

"Alright, Howard, do what you can to assist on the highway, we'll send over reinforcements once Central City is secured." The Filthwings went down about as quickly as the others did, but yet again, he could add more to his ever growing list of 'Things I did not think I would live to see'. As a delivery truck, driving parallel to him, except in the opposite lane of traffic, swerved wildly, giving him the quickest of glimpses to see yet another aberration at the wheel. Along with the driving aberration, he turned his head to see several archer aberrations leap on top of the truck.

"From bad to worse, I'm resigning early after this." Grabbing his X-Baton from his pocket, he changed it from it's baton form, to it's blaster form. Taking aim at the aberrations and opening fire. The one thing he hated about the blast was the fact it's shots went so wide, but lucky for him, the burst fire made short work of the aberrations, literally as they burst into nothing from a single stray shot. Yet, when one went down, another, sometimes two took it's place. "What is this! A clown car?! Truck, clown truck? Nevermind! Die!" He didn't even give them the chance to fire back as he blasted away at the onslaught of aberrations, soon the truck was empty of aberrations. Changing his X-Baton back, he put it in it's holster, before he reached for his communicator.

"HQ, I'm almost on scene, just finished clearing the tunnel and-" He stopped short as he heard the truck crash violently against the dividing wall, barely having time to shield himself from the debris, he could only watch as the truck swerved violently, and crashed into, and through, the dividing wall, before beginning to tumble in a burning wreck straight towards him. "Ah.....shit!"

Once again it was either dumb luck, or something else that saved him, as the truck was completely destroy in a ball of flaming metal, despite a few singed hairs, and slightly toasty eyebrows, he drove straight through the flames, without issue, save for the two Filthwings that refused to leave him alone. Due to them firing from behind him he couldn't fire back, barely managing to avoid, both their shots and abandoned cars along the highway. Having a clear enough straightaway, he pulled his X-Baton free and opened fire in retaliation, one of them being able to dodge, while the other wasn't as lucky and ate each shot before crashing to the ground.

The remaining Filthwing flew wildly, until he stopped directly in front of him, firing away at him. It's shots never found their mark as he dodged to the left of them. Deciding enough was enough, he revved the bike even more, and did what Akira always hated him doing, popped a wheelie. Which due to the speed and angle, lifted it off the ground, and straight into the Filthwing, killing it, and destroying the bike in a fiery ball.

His ungodly luck pulled through again that day, he was flung, rather painfully from the blast, landing ungracefully some feet away. Struggling to his feet, he saw the smoke from his crash and couldn't help but smirk. "Nailed it" Before he clutched his stomach which doubtlessly would bruise terribly later. "And it nailed me too, ah shit!" Despite desperately wanting to roll around on the ground in agony, he forced himself to his feet. "Nothing to it but to go forward" Taking out his X-Baton he flipped it back to baton mode, before he went off down the ruined highway. Making his way passed a trashed van, he saw several Emergency Medics were tending to wounded civilians.

One medic took notice of his arrival. "Boy, am I glad to see you. Give me a hand will ya?" Nodding despite the fact the medic wasn't looking at him, Barret made his way over to a civilian close to him, his legs were roughed up badly, likely he couldn't stand under his own power. Despite the pain in his gut, Barret helped the hurt civilian to his feet, bearing most of his weight as they slowly followed after the medic, who was doing the same with the other civilian. "Come with me! The chopper's this way!" The two of them slowly but surely carried the victims towards the descending chopper, Barret's eyes catching a few other medics attending to wounded officers.

Several drones left the chopper, carrying a stretcher between 2 drones each. As gently as he could, Barret laid the wounded civilian down and watched as the drone flew him and the other civilian into the chopper, and hopefully to safety

"Thanks for your help, I'm pretty sure I can take it from here, there are more choppers on the way." The sound of a chopper soaring by them filled the air, followed immediately by the panicked cries of the pilot.

"Mayday! Mayday! We're under attack! I can't shake em!" The chopper flew by nearly engulfed in flames with several aberrations dangling off of it. The pilot gave out a cry before it crashed further down the highway. Not sparing a moment, Barret immediately ran towards the crash, only for the chopper to explode, with enough force to stagger him. Regardless, he continued on, forced only to stop when a civilian was barely escaping an aberration, which using it's blade knocked them into the highway divider.

As another aberration joined in, Barret ran to defend to civilian. "If you can move, get further back, there are medics over there" He barely heard the civilian get up and ran for it, before he charged the aberrations. He took what his old man had said about aberrations to heart, they were typically slow to attack, but were dangerous in groups. Using his baton to belt the closest one in the head, he kicked out with his leg, toppling it over, before he began to pummel the other one, who barely had time to swing its blade arm before Barret destroyed it. As the downed one scrambled to its feet, Barret changed the baton to a blaster and put a few rounds into the aberration, destroying it, before changing it back to a baton.

"Guess training with Jin actually did pay off." He then heard someone come over the radio again.

"This is PDO25. I need backup, ASAP! I've found someone who needs evac. We've got an officer down! Someone come gimme a hand over here!" He quickly reached for his own comm.

"Hang tight Akira, be there in just a bit." Running passed the back of a van, he barely had time to roll away as an aberration burst out of it swinging, with another joining in, switching back to blaster, he managed to down the ambushing aberration, only for the new comer to backhand him hard across the face sending him back. Luckily two other officers were there to back him up with he stood back up. "Now you've pissed me off!"

As the three charged their respective targets, Barret brought his baton down hard on the clawed aberrations head, before switching to his blaster and destroying two that were nearby before firing a single blast into the clawed aberration's head. "You alright?" One of the officers asked, as he beat back two aberrations. "We're a man down. Give us a hand!"

The female officer managed to blast 3 aberrations destroying them. "Let's get em!" Barret dodged just as a clawed aberration swung, switching back to his baton, he kicked upwards sending it flying, before he began to beat into a blade wielding aberration. Just as the grounded aberrations were dealt with, more filthwings flew onto the scene.

"Damnit will you guys leave me alone!" Changing back to his blaster, he and the other 2 officers opened fire, managing to gun down the flying aberrations. Once they were gone, no more seemed to appear giving them breathing room. Quickly the three regrouped.

"Hey, you hurt?" The male officer asked him, to which it was more than plain to see Barret wasn't feeling so hot.

"Given the circumstances I probably could be worse" The female officer didn't seem to take his joke well, as she handed him a small pill.

"Here take that, it'll heal you right up, or just make it so ya don't die before ya get back to the station." Barret nodded as he took the pill from her, downing it quickly, despite the fact he hated taking his medicine even with water, if it meant the pain would be less intense he down an entire medicine cabinet dry.

Suddenly, he got a call over his radio, from Akira. "Do you read me? Come on, where are you?" Her voice was clearly panicked, he would be lying if he wasn't a few minutes away from a panic attack himself.

"I know that voice, she went to go check out the crash site!" Nodding quickly, Barret ran off barely hearing what the officer still had to say. "Eyes open out there!" As he ran further down the highway he passed several other officers. Deciding he had wasted enough time, he ran on, soon seeing Akira, who was helping another officer sit upright. His heart began to calm a bit when he saw she wasn't hurt, though the officer was another story.

As he ran up, the officer tried to stand, only to collapse back down. "My leg.... it's my damn leg...... I can't move like this..." Before he could offer Akira a hand in helping the officer up, he turned around, seeing the very air began to tear open, pixels almost like in a video game escaped the oddly jagged red opening.

"Shit! Now of all times!" Holding his baton at the ready, Akira moved the officer to a slightly safer spot as she readied her own.

Barret could tell something left the gate, he could see the dust kicked up on the ground as if something had landed. "A-A gate?!" Akira's voice sounded like she couldn't make heads or tails of the situation, and neither could he. Yet, he didn't have time to think on it, as he was struck violently in the face, by the invisible foe, Akira being close enough to catch him before he hit the ground. "Who's there?!" using her blaster, she fired wherever the dust was kicked up, but none of her shots hit home. Finally no longer dazed by the surprise hit to his jaw, he took out his own blaster, firing like his sister, hoping beyond hope that he'd hit something.

"Come in, PDO25! Corruption levels just shot up over there. What's going on?" Once again Barret was knocked back as a blow landed straight in his already bruising gut, Akira doing her best to get closer to him but was forced to retreat as she somehow dodged one of the invisible blows.

"We're engaging hostile targets!" She continued to look frantically about trying to find what was attacking them, but couldn't see anything." But Whatever they are, we can't see them!" Unfortunately for her, she was struck in the face as well and sent back, Barret getting up in time to fire at where she was struck, still failing to hit another. Barely dodging another attack, he scrambled to help her up.

"Can't see them? Are you sure it's not just an aberration hidden somewhere?" Just as he was struck back again, Barret had managed to just barely block the attack, at least landing on his feet. "Whatever they are, get out of there now! That is all."

"Did that bastard just hang up on us?! I swear we make it outta this I'll rip him a new on-woah!" Barret couldn't even finish his angry rant as he was sent flying again. Akira quickly getting to his side, covering him while he struggled to his feet.

"How're we supposed to fight something we can't even see?!" She saw that even more dust was kicked up by the invisible enemies. "This is real bad. I don't know how we're gonna make it." Getting to his feet, Barret whipped out his baton, watching as the dust moved in one spot, Akira firing and finally managing to hit the target only for it to be deflected, but gave Barret just enough time to move in and attack, yet all he found was another blow directly to his face. Sending him sprawling across the ground. Akira ran before the target and fired again, only to be kicked in the back by it, sending her flying and landing next to him. As the two struggled in vain to get to their feet, the invisible foe rushed towards Barret.

Yet, it stopped directly in front of him, he could tell from the dust it kicked up. It didn't attack again, but shortly after was blasted away by, of all people, Jin. Both of them were too busy looking at Jin to notice another approaching behind Akira, only for it to be destroyed somehow by Alicia.

Barret's pain wasn't over yet, as he was struck violently by yet another invisible foe, this one not pausing like the other had. God he was going to be sore as hell in the morning, if he lived to see it anyway. Turning back to face the invisible foe, despite the fact he couldn't even see the enemy. He saw the strangest thing floating just in front of where he suspected the enemy to be. What looked like one of those stupid puzzle cubes he hated as a kid, but jacked up to 11, was floating in the air. Though he had no idea what was happening, he knew whatever it was that attacked him was dead, as soon as the cube vanished.

As he panted, both from exhaustion and pain, he heard several footsteps get closer to him. Before from the corner of his vision, he saw a hand reach down at him. Looking up, he saw the same weird cube on the hand's wrist, and the person holding out the hand just so happened to be Max Howard. "Old man?!" He took his hand and got to his feet, albeit a bit uneasy due to the beating he took.

"Just in time, huh?" Akira managed to get up by herself, quickly joining the two.

"Dad?!" Yet, this reunion was a little short lived as Alicia approached.

"Better put the reunion on hold." She motioned towards the gate that was opening on top of a pile of cars. Before Max could respond, he was called over his radio. The voice that came through it was a man known as Yoseph Calvert.

"Max, you must let them use the Legatus." This caught Max by surprise.

"W-Wait a minute, commander, what the hell're you sayin'?" Yet, this did not stop the commander.

"You cannot expect them to fight chimeras on their own. This is an order, Captain." Alicia pulled out what Barret believed to be the Legatus in question as he continued. "Don't worry about calibration, I've already loaded their personnel data into those devices."

Max couldn't look more conflicted, sighing in defeat before he spoke. "If you say so." He took out another Legatus, before looking it over, and with a grunt threw it to Barret, who caught it, but honestly had no idea what it was for. Alicia throwing Akira her own.

Jin finally decided to join them as he carried the wounded officer." Captain, are you serious?"

Akira and Barret couldn't make any sense of this Legatus thing. "What is this thing?" Akira asked, as Barret began to shake it.

"Kinda looks like one of those really small laptops, ya know what I mean, right?" He asked Akira as he stopped shaking it.

"That 'Thing' will let you use a Legion of your own." Giving another sigh Max walked a bit farther away from them. "I really hoped you two wouldn't get caught up in all this. Damn it, Commander" Turning his bad eye towards them, he spoke again. "Now, don't go dying on me." Barret could tell his old man was serious, so he gave a determined nod. Max, Alicia, and Jin walked off, leaving Barret and Akira alone for a moment.

"So uh? You know how to put this thing on, Akira?" Judging by the look she gave him and the shrug, she was as clueless as him. Yet, both of them saw even more gates begin to open, more invisible enemies dropping from them. "Guess we don't have a lotta time to get this right! Let's do what that old man showed us when we were younger maybe that'll work." Akira, likely not having any better ideas nodded, as the two got ready.

Bringing down their Legatus, a click was heard from it as well as a blue tinted glow, bringing it up with intense speed, they both slapped their Legatus to their wrists, finding it practically snapping into place, releasing a blue pulse of sorts, as the Legatus spoke.

"ID code confirmed" The invisible enemy began to reveal itself, it's hidden form fading away quickly, and Barret had to admit, he liked it better when he couldn't see it. Holding their Legatus up right, the device began to move and react as it spoke again. "Starting Up" As the two readied themselves, and the devices seemingly were nearly ready it spoke again. "Core Release" Throwing their arms forward, Barret and Akira's Legatus launched forward like a disc, stopping short of the enemy, and opening even wider.

"Engaging Advent Protocol" From the center of the odd cubes, two forms began to appear. "Stabilized" Soon, from each cube stood, or rather, floated a humanoid figure. Barret's had a very streamlined appearance, almost like something out of those old 20th century animes he used to watch as a kid. While from Akira's was floating in a more literal sense as it lacked any form of legs. "Advent Protocol Complete" The Legatus suddenly closed around each figure's neck, which had them stir to life. "Chained Legion"

Said chains connected to both his and Akira's wrists, more specifically the large cuff like thing he had always wondered what purpose it served. Max's voice coming over the radio explained the situation. "That's a Legion. Part weapon, part partner. It's saved my ass plenty of times." Said Legions lashed out at the enemies, Barret's began to slash into them, easily reducing them into parts, while Akira's began to fire bolt after bolt which dug into each enemy it struck.

"Whoa, this is so weird.....It's like I'm feeling everything it feels..." Akira was certainly caught off guard by it, and Barret wasn't faring any better.

"That means it's working. So I'm guessing you can see that thing in front of you now, too?" As Max spoke, more aberrations joined the fray as well, yet were cut down even faster by the Legion. Barret used his baton to smack one of the now visible enemies away as his Legion rushed it and tore it apart. "That ugly sonofabitch is what we call a chimera. The Ark's not-so-public enemy number 1"

"This is a whole lot to take in at once old man!" Barret couldn't help, but say as more Filthwings flew in, he was more than happy to see them be torn to shreds by his Legion, even Akira's was doing a number on them.

"That device we gave you is a Legatus. Experimental counter-chimeric weaponry." Jin spoke up. "It's what connects us to the Legions. That connection is why you can see the the chimeras now." It began to sound like he was just listing things off on his hand. "On top of that, it's got memo-taking apps, navigational aids, you name it. I've got solitaire on mine. It's really good" Akira couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"Now really the time to be geeking out, Jin?" Alicia chimed in as Barret and Akira made short work of the now swarming chimeras and aberrations. "Listen, the Legion's wired to attack chimeras all on its own. Think of yourselves as lion tamers. Just keep your hand on the whip, and you'll be fine."

Max once again spoke up, as Barret blasted another chimera. "Look out though, Legions aren't always the safest tool in the box. Keep em out too long and they overheat. Which makes them cranky. And you do not wanna see a cranky legion."

Alicia laughed over the radio. "Trust me, your old man knows from experience."

Jin spoke up as Akira's Legion rained several shots down on aberrations destroying them. "Lucky for our dear captain, the Legatus' limiter keeps them from going from 'cranky' to 'murderous'"

This had Max quickly speak up and get things back on track. "Alright, alright you two, focus!"

It wasn't long until the last of the chimera were dealt with, leaving both Akira and Barret exhausted, yet before either could relax, another gate, this one larger than the last ones, opened behind them dropping out a larger chimera, a blade in one arm, and a shield for the other. This one slammed into the section of highway hard enough to knock it loose.

"Careful! This one seems stronger than the rest!" Akira said as she managed to dodge one of it's swings, retaliating with a barrage of blasts. The ground beneath them shifting again.

"Crap! I don't know how much longer this is gonna last, might wanna finish this up fast sis!" Barret launched his Legion at the chimera again, it's blade digging into it's back as he slid underneath it and blasted it as well. The two dodged and evaded it's attacks with ease, it was a whole lot slower compared to the others. Not long after, it leapt away, only a portion of the highway that wasn't crumbling. Grabbing hold of a broken truck, it leapt into the air, before slamming the truck down onto the crumbling highway, which finally broke it free.

"Ah Crap! Both of you move!" Max's voice was panicked as he spoke, Akira already making a break for a stable piece of highway, but Barret wasn't as lucky, the ground giving out halfway and making a slope steep enough to send him sliding down to his death, using his X-Baton he managed to dig in enough to not fall to his death, but it seemed all his good luck with avoiding death was coming back to bite him as now the cars from the highway began to slide down towards him. Barely managing to dodge each car and a few trucks, he thought he was in the clear when the same kind of truck that nearly killed him when he was getting to the highway, began to slide down as well, leaving him no room to dodge.

"Ah God Damnit!" As he braced for impact, something happened with both him and his Legatus, a blue glint escaped the Legatus as, unbeknownst to him, blue vein like lines connected to his left eye, and his hair had turned an intense blue. Launching his legion forward, it managed to get underneath the truck, and using the chain that connected them, pulled him forward as well. Almost directly into the burning truck, before he was narrowly pulled underneath, just barely avoiding death, yet again.

His gaze turned upwards as he saw the remainder of the highway, where Akira and the others were. Unknown to him, that immense Chimera actually had them retreating, yet before it could strike again, both him and his Legion were airborne, before coming down and slicing clean through the chimera together. As it and his Legion vanished, and Barret's hair returned to normal, Max wasn't sure what he had just watched. "What in the hell was that?"

Barret stood up and was about to speak when an intense pain shot through his skull, forcing him to drop his baton and collapse . Akira being the first to rush over to him, catching him before he cracked his skull falling over. "Easy easy! Barret are you ok?!" He wasn't entirely all too focused on speaking, the pain across his entire body matching the pain in his head.

Max crouching down next to him as well, showing the kind of worry that he would whenever Barret or Akira would get themselves hurt at home or at school. "Are you okay?! You nearly gave me a damn heart attack."

Alicia saw that Barret was starting to focus enough to actually hear them so she spoke her mind. "Are you SURE you've never used a Legion before? You're already way better at it than Max." To which Max took offense with.

"I'm standin' right here, Alicia!" Max looked back down at Barret who still looked out of it. "But I gotta admit, that was somethin'. Damn thing moved like it was a part of your body." Jin seemed to be speaking into his radio as he turned to the others.

"Seems that was all of em, We'd better get back to HQ." Max turned back to Akira and Barret.

"Alright, you two are coming with us. I'll try and explain all this later. Once you and Barret get yourselves checked out that is, I'm not having either of you with concussions you hear me?" Max turned to look up as a chopper arrived to pick them all up, Akira helping her beaten and exhausted brother to his feet, leaving him squinting up at the descending chopper.

Why was it he could feel exactly what the Legion could, why did it listen to his panicked thoughts of not wanting to die. He wasn't sure, but he was sure that he was sore as hell and was not going to be in the mood to do paperwork for awhile.


	3. [INTERLUDE] Recovery and Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Interlude]
> 
> an intervening period of time.

Barret managed fine as they sat in silence on the way back to HQ, though he wasn't feeling so hot. Getting beaten senseless by Chimeras, something he didn't know existed until less than 2 hours ago, wasn't exactly a fun time. Judging from the bruises Akira had, she was feeling just as terrible as he did. He could see the look both him and Akira got from Max, he could tell he was going to chew them both out when they got home.

When the pilot told them that they were in bound on the helipad, that was when Max decided to speak up. "Once we land, I expect you both to make for the medical wing and get checked out by Brenda. I'll speak with the Commander about the case, and everything." Akira, of course wanted to object.

"Dad, we're fine! We're a lot tougher than you think!" When she said this she looked over to Barret, hoping he'd back her up. "Right?"

Barret had zoned out for the entire thing. "What?" Max gave Akira look and she immediately backed down, Alicia making sure Barret didn't fall asleep if he did have a concussion.

"Listen, you two took a beating and I just don't want you two suffering because you don't want to seem hurt." He turned away facing Jin. "When Olive told us you two were cornered by Chimeras, I damn near had a heart attack." Jin chimed in next.

"You two should've seen it, the Captain tore through aberrations like no tomorrow. Wish I could've recorded it." Max smacked Jin's arm, which had Alicia laughing.

"The Captain definitely has some serious fight in him when it comes to you two, just don't be throwing yourselves into danger all the time. You'll take even more time off his life." She noticed Barret was still dazed, ever since he had sliced that Laius in half, he had been all out of sorts. She couldn't get the fact his normally blonde hair was an intense blue. She could also tell that Akira was worried just as much as Max was with her brother's behavior. 

She remembered every time he would wind up hurting himself when they were still kids, Akira would always cry while he would try and make her smile again, regardless of if he was in pain or not. Those two were inseparable, she still remembered when Max invited all of Neuron to their 16th birthday party. As the memory came to her she laughed, which caught the other's attention.

"Think of a joke or something, Alicia?" She tried to stifle her laugh.

"Yeah, just remembered when you had us all over for their 16th birthday party." This had Jin groan as Akira actually managed to crack a smile.

"Of course, now of all times you would remember that." Max smirked as he looked over to Jin.

"What's wrong? Not like you could remember the party." Groaning again Jin dipped his head into his hands. Surprisingly, it was Barret who spoke up next.

"Ya know we never did figure out who broke the pool table." This had everyone quiet, it slowly dawning on them that they never did catch who did that.

"I always thought it was Shinjiro, he did have his chest wrapped up for a couple days after the party." Max sighed as he shook his head as Alicia spoke.

"No, he bruised his ribs when he tripped down the front stairs, I always had my money on Hisayoshi." This had Alicia look at him funny.

"Really? Just a hunch or?" Max shifted slightly as the chopper moved.

"After the party, he apparently needed to take a week off due to injuries, but I haven't gotten around to actually asking him." Alicia seemed convinced as she shrugged. The chopper shifting again as it began to set down. Max getting up from his seat as the door's opened. As he was about to walk out he turned to Akira. "Akira, help Barret out and make sure he doesn't collapse on the way." She gave Max a nod as she stood up, helping her brother to his feet. She lifted him up a little too quickly as he nearly immediately toppled over, Alicia helping Akira keep him on his feet. Slowly Akira and Barret made their way off the chopper, following after Max as Jin and Alicia walked past them.

"Sorry bout this sis" Barret muttered, causing Akira to shake her head.

"Stop that, you are always so reckless. Just keep quiet and I'll make sure we get there safely." She heard a quiet 'Thank You' come from him, which had a soft smile cross her lips. Once they reached the elevator, Max had held the doors open, they got in. Jin pressed one of the buttons and they waited as the elevator went down. A small groan escaped Barret, which had Max glance at him, Alicia almost missed the look he had. Once the elevator dinged and opened, Max walked ahead with Akira and Barret close behind.

Stopping outside another room, Max turned to them. "Alright you two, get in there and don't come out until you can both leave under your own power." Akira gave him a nod, as Barret gave a halfhearted salute before his sister dragged him into the room. Upon entering the room, they caught the attention of the woman inside. Her bright blue hair catching Akira's attention first.

"Oh you must be the Captain Howard's kids. I was told to expect you both." She walked over and helped Akira hold Barret, guiding him over to one of the beds. Helping Akira lay him down on it, she guided Akira over to the other bed, removing the dividing curtain between them. "Akira, you can lay down for now, I have to find some things first. Try and rest your eyes." She turned to Barret first, taking out a pocket flashlight. "Try not to move too much I need to check something." Turning the flash light on, she shined it in one of his eyes, it reacted to light quickly, she did the same to the other eye and it was the same. Turning the light off and pocketing it, she seemed content with what she saw. "He doesn't appear to have a concussion." She walked over Akira, pulling the dividing curtain back so Barret couldn't see anything.

Figuring that she was checking Akira for any broken bones, leaving him to his own devices. Despite the pain digging into his head and the rest of his body, he rolled over in the bed, trying to rest his eyes and somehow ease the pain.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he eventually felt something touching him, having him roll back over. "I have to check for anything broken, if you can, would you mind removing your armor and shirt?" Taking a moment to sit up, he felt a twinge of pain in his chest. Carefully, he took off his body armor, and managed to slip off his shirt. Finally take notice of the large bruises on his chest. Gently at first, she began to press into his body, mostly around his ribs looking for anything broken. Besides the occasionally wince from pressing too hard on a bruise, she didn't seem to find any. 

Pulling back, she waited a moment as he slipped back on his dress uniform. Once it was back on she pulled the dividing curtain back, showing Akira just slipping her armor back on. "Nothing seem broken, which is good, but the bruising is quite severe, likely bone bruising as well. I'll give you both some pain killers and medicine for the time being. I'll tell the Commander you both are to go home. Take these before you leave, before you go to bed, and when you wake up in the morning tomorrow. Once you both arrive tomorrow come by so I can check up and make sure you are healing properly" Handing the two of them their own bottle of pills, Barret squinted to read how many he was actually supposed to take. Looking over to Akira and saw her let two pills fall outta her bottle before taking them dry. He hated taking them dry, but this pain he was in was greater than his hatred of taking pills without a drink.

Doing the same as his sister, and downing the pills, he slowly got out of the bed, stretching his weary limbs. "I should apologize, I had wanted to make sure you were both alright, but I never gave you my name. I'm Brenda Moreno. I'm in charge of Neuron's Medical Wing. I hope I won't be seeing you both in here too often." He could tell she was both joking when she said that, and wasn't at the same time. Slowly getting up, he felt a head-rush, Brenda helping steady him. "Take it easy for the rest of the evening, the medicine should kick in soon." Akira got off her bed and walked over to Barret.

"Hope you don't expect me to carry you home too Barry." Shaking his head, he managed to keep himself steady.

"Gloat all ya want Aki, you weren't the one who got cracked across the jaw." He turned back to Brenda, holding his hand out. "Wanna say thanks for that, wouldn't have been fun heading to bed tonight without those painkillers." She shook his hand as she shook her head.

"It's no problem, I'll inform the Commander you are to be allowed to go home for the evening." When she was about to walk to the door, she was stopped as Jin came in.

"No need, Commander said they can head home for the night, the Captain as well. Just came by so I can take the Legatus off of em" Barret looked down at his wrist, grabbing the Legatus off of it, as did Akira. Jin took them and made sure they weren't damaged. "Sorry kids, but even we aren't allowed to take our Legatus home. Seems Brenda gave you both a clean bill of health, so I'm glad." He motioned behind him. "The Captain is waiting for you two in the garage, he said he was gonna make sure you both got home safe, so don't keep him waiting

As the twins walked passed Jin, Barret started rubbing his head. "Why does it feel like we would've been better off being hospitalized."

Akira sighed as she looked down. "Dad's gonna be so mad" They were both in grim agreement at that. "But, He'll probably only chew us out." Barret laughing.

"What? You worried he'll ground us?" He kept laughing as she pouted. "Man, to think you're still worried he'll ground us at 20 years old" She slapped him in the back of the head, which had let out a pained yelp. "Hey!"

"That's what you get! And besides we still live with him!" She crossed her arms as she pushed the down button for the elevator. "He's just looking out for us." She muttered, but he had managed to catch it.

Letting out a huff, he crossed his arms as well. "The old man would keep looking out for us well into his 90s if we let him. Wasn't it your idea to join the police so he didn't have to keep an eye on us?" He then snorted as something came to mind. "Hey, remember when he finally came home with that scar?" She looked over to him, noticing his smirk. Finally remembering what he was talking about.

She let out a light chuckle. "I remember how he tried to keep us from noticing it the entire day. Then when you started to cry" Barret cut her off.

"Hey! I did not cry!" She laughed as she pointed at him.

"You did! You started crying because you thought he was mad at you! And then when you started crying, he panicked and tried to console you, and that's when we finally got see his eyes, and then-" Barret picked up her sentence interrupting her.

"Then he started to cry because he thought we wouldn't like how he looked." Barret shook his head as Akira kept laughing. "That's the one thing I remembered from that. The first and only time I have ever seen the old man cry." Giving Akira a glare he continued. "Course you would remember that fact I was crying." The elevator dinged, opening up for the two to finally get on.

"Man" He leaned against the back of the elevator, as Akira pressed the button for the garage. "I've been hankering for Rästner's. Wonder if the old man would wanna go grab some next time we're in Harmony Square." Akira gave him a look.

"What? Do I not exist anymore?" Barret shrugged.

"You're a big girl now Akira, plus you never payed me back for the last 3 times we got Rästner's" Akira stomped her foot at this.

"Oh come on! That was months ago!" Before she could grab at him, the elevator stopped and opened, revealing the garage. Barret walked out first, while Akira grumbled to herself as she walked behind him. The Neuron garage wasn't the largest, but the amount of vehicles it could hold seemed endless, mostly because Barret never bothered to actually ask how many where there.

Even though the garage was small, neither of them saw where their dad was. Just as Barret started scratching his head, they heard a cough from behind them, causing both of them to jump as they straightened out immediately. Slowly turning around, the two of them saw their dad leaning against the wall beside the elevators. The twins were shaking slightly as Max walked towards them, a stern look on his face. As he stood tall in front of them both, their eyes looking down at the floor. After what felt like forever, Max let out a sigh and pulled the two of them into a hug. "I'm glad you both are alright."

Both Akira and Barret breathed a silent sigh of relief, and returned the hug. Akira giving a full hug, while Barret gave him a one-armed hug. Once the 3 of them pulled away, Max spoke again. "Let's get you two home, you've both had a long night." Max walked off down the garage and towards one of the cars. Akira following first, with Barret close behind. As Max opened the driver's side door, Akira and Barret climbing into the backseat. After starting the car, the door in front of them beeping 3 times before it opened, letting Max drive off.

The car ride was quiet, despite the highway they would normally take home being trashed, Max knew other ways home. Barret rested his head against the glass of the window. He had zoned out to the news station the radio was set to. His eyes drifted to Akira, who looked like she had dozed off. The exhaustion from the incident finally catching up with him as a yawn escaped him. He wasn't sure how long the drive took, but when he finally came too, the car had stopped and Max had gotten out.

He shook Akira awake, and dodge her hand as she woke with a start. "We're home." Barret was too tired to egg his sister on

She gave him a tired smile as she got out of the car, Barret following after. Max already had the door open as the twins walked into the living room, Max putting his keys onto a key hook as he began to take off his heavy armor. Akira did the same with her's while Barret had left his back at HQ. He never liked wearing it, but good news was he didn't need too, while the armor was regulation, so long as he wore the dress uniform he was technically in uniform. Once both Akira and Max were out of their armor, Max sighed and turned to them.

"Listen, the Commander didn't really talk much with me when we got back, he was hoping to get to talk with you both. I expect it's gonna be important, so I want you both to listen well. For now, get to bed. I'm not having either of you dead on your feet tomorrow, got it?" Barret and Akira both gave a tired nod, before Max ruffled their hair. "Get to bed you two, I'll see you in the morning." With that, he walked over to his own room, while Akira and Barret walked off to theirs.

Akira waved him a tired goodbye as she walked into her room. Barret went into his own room, kicking off his uniform boots, and talking off his uniform jacket, hanging it up on his door. Changing out of his work clothes, he threw on his pajama pants and collapsed into bed, laying there a moment before he picked up his work pants, fishing through the pockets and pulling out the two pill bottles Brenda had given him, they had started working on the way home, and she did say to take before bed as well. Opening them and shaking until two pills were in his hand, then closing the bottles and putting them on his night stand. 

Making sure his door was closed, he leaned over his bed, which was a bad idea as he felt the blood rush to his brain, which made his head pound. He pulled at a large box under his bed, pulling it out and taking a can of Furinkazan Fizz out. He made sure to keep this supply hidden as Akira was notorious for being addicted to Furinkazan Fizz, and he wasn't about to let her drink his supply, after what he spent to get it. Popping the lid he put the pills in his mouth and downed the entire can. Crushing the can in hand, he tossed it into the small trashcan on his floor.

Pulling his blankets out from under him, he got himself comfortable under them and rested his head against the pillows. He was exhausted, but all in all, today had gone better then expected. He and Akira were now closer to their old man, even if Max wasn't all for the idea. As he began to drift off to sleep, he only hoped that everyday after today would end as well as this one did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to see more family bonding between the Twins and Max, so that's where this came from


	4. [AWAKE]: First Day and Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The First Official case of the Howard Twins time as Neuron Officers, proves to be the most life changing as well

He had forgotten he had even set an alarm for the morning. Yet, he had fallen off his bed due to the noise of the godforsaken thing, all because he's a heavy sleeper and slept through the 3 other alarms the old man got him. Frantically pressing the off button to get it to shut off, he just sat there for a few moments, finally getting his mind together. After heaving himself off the floor, he stumbled on his bed sheets, managing to step out of them, he grabbed them and tossed them onto his bed. Searching through his dresser, he pulled out fresh clothing. He had done his laundry the day before, mostly because Akira got on his case over it.

After getting himself into work appropriate clothing, he threw on his uniform jacket. struggling with the buttons for a moment, before he put his boots on as well. Finally getting his radio strap on. He made himself look presentable, before making an attempt to fix his bed sheets. After giving up on making it look perfect, he looked around for his X Baton, he knew he brought it home he just didn't remember where he threw it last night. Searching through yesterday's clothing, he found it, still on his work pants from the day prior, belt and all. Upon finally looping his pants in the belt, and making sure his X Baton wouldn't come loose.

Compared to his sister, his hair rarely suffered from bed head, so he just made sure it looked presentable. Upon walking out of his room, he saw that his old man was making breakfast, or was trying to at least. Letting out a yawn, he looked through the fridge for the milk. "Morning old man." Grabbing the container he brought it over to the table, three glasses already set out.

"Up before Akira huh? Guess this is a week of firsts." Max managed to salvage the omelet he was making, getting it out and onto a plate he had nearby.

"Ha ha ha, says the man who managed to sleep through the smoke alarms going off at least six times." Max pointed the spatula at him.

"None of that, or your cooking your own breakfast." Max turned his attention back to the skillet, cracking 3 more eggs into it. "You want them cheesy like you?" The fake offended scoff from him had Max smiling.

"To think! My father would call me such a thing! What would Akira think if she was here?" He didn't have to wait long as he turned around to see the figure of his sister, her hair sticking up in every which way, she hadn't even gotten dressed yet.

"That you both are really loud dorks." She yawned, in her hand she had an old plush Lappy toy Max had gotten them both for their 6th birthdays. He had his, he just had to find it, was bound to be somewhere in his room.

"I'm not sure if I should be happy being made fun of on two sides here, but she called you a dork too so I'll count that as a win!" He took a sip of his milk. She walked over to the table, and pulled a chair out, and immediately collapsed into it. Barret took her glass and poured her a glass of milk as well. She took it and downed half of it in one go. "Hope you didn't stay up too long last night Aki." She gave him a look as she finished her milk.

"I don't even remember hitting the bed." Was all she said as she poured herself another glass, Barret giving a small chuckle as he took a sip of his own milk. Max managed to have more luck with Barret's breakfast than his own. Handing him the cheese filled omelet as he set to work on Akira's.

"You might wanna get yourself ready Akira, we do have to leave once we finish eating." Was all he said. Akira, now a bit more awake than she was a moment again, nodded and walked, or more so stumbled back to her room. Max then turned to Barret, who had just began to dig into his food. "You take the morning dose?" This had Barret look at him confused. "The meds Brenda gave you?" Realization quickly crossed his face, before he took off for his room. Max sighed as he kept cooking, his kids were idiots but damn if he didn't love them.

Soon, Barret came back with two pills in hand, putting them in his mouth, before grabbing his glass of milk and downing it. Putting his glass back on the table, he got back to eating. Akira joined them, dressed fully in her uniform, save the body armor still hanging on the wall. Her hair was a little more tamed, save for a few loose tufts of hair. Barret kept digging into his omelet, Max finishing Akira's omelet when he was halfway through his. Handing the plate to Akira, Max sat at the table as well.

The three of them silently, but contently ate their food. Barret finishing first, getting up and putting the milk away. Max swallowed what he had in his mouth before he spoke up. "Listen, I'm not entirely sure what's going through the Commander's mind, so when we arrive at HQ, we're reporting directly to him." He could tell Max was conflicted about this whole thing. Ever since he found out they had joined the police in the first place, he could feel his old man's worry for the two of them almost everyday. Akira wanted desperately to prove to him that they could take care of themselves, to help save the world with him.

It didn't take long for Akira and Max to finish their food, Barret idly looking through his phone. Max took the plates from the table, and put them into the sink, deciding to wash them when he got home tonight. Akira was the next to stand up, going over to where they kept their body armor, putting her's on with ease. Barret closed his phone, grabbing the glasses from the table putting them into the sink as well, Max slipping by him. Rinsing out the glasses before he walked away, he hated having to clean out dried milk from glassing. Max had gotten his armor on quickly, he would always wonder how the old man could even move with that kind of gear on.

Both Akira and Max looked at him as he walked over, causing him to look himself over for a moment. "Listen you know I hate wearing that armor. And it isn't like I'm not in uniform regardless." He crossed his arms and looked away.

Max sighed. "Fine, but when you have broken ribs from taking a hit to the chest, don't come crying to me." 

Barret shrugged his shoulders. "Oh ye of little faith!" Max turned towards the door, taking the keys off of the door.

"Come on, no time to waste." Max walked out first, Akira and Barret following after, Barret making sure to lock the door behind them. The drive to HQ wasn't eventful in the slightest, save for a bit of traffic when a crosswalk was under maintenance.

As they pulled into the HQ's garage, they saw it was about as quiet down there as it could be. Though there were a few people here, likely with the technical department, ensuring that none of the vehicles were damaged after last night. Max got out first and threw the keys towards a man in a mask. "Told ya I'd bring it back Akinori." Akinori, as Barret now knew him, fumbled with the keys as he caught them.

"Come on you two, best not keep the Commander waiting." Max was a lot more stern now that they arrived at HQ, probably because he has a reputation to maintain. Walking over to the elevator, Max pressed it and waited for it, Barret and Akira close behind.

"Hey old man, that poor guy seemed terrified of you, you haven't been too much of a hard ass without us knowing have you?" Akira jabbed his arm, which had him wince as Max sighed.

"Nah, Akinori only joined up a few days back, when he found out I take a patrol car to and from home, poor kid nearly had a heart attack when he thought he'd need to tell me I couldn't. Kid's more obsessed with cars than I think the Commander is with Chimeras, and that, is saying something." He pointed at Barret as he said this, just as the elevator door opened, a man carrying a box of likely something metal given the heavy clanking sounds coming from it, hurried passed them.

Getting in, Max pressed the button for the floor they needed. Barret leaned against the back of elevator as they rode it up. The silence wasn't as tense as it was awkward, neither Barret or Akira knew was to ask, they could tell the weight of the situation on Max's shoulders was getting greater the closer they got to the Commander. By the time the doors opened again, Max's face seemed tense as well, yet all the twins could do is follow after him.

As they arrived at what appeared to be the main office, they saw both Jin and Alicie were there. Jin standing nearest the tables, and Alicia near what appeared to be servers for the station. It was that or Barret had no idea what they were. The desk nearest the large screen had a large chair in front of it, yet it was pointed away from the rest of the office. Max's face turned from tense to a grimace as he walked a head of them, walking to the side of the desk, while both Barret and Akira stood at attention in front of the desk. From what Barret could see, Alicia had her eyes of Max, who looked with a grimace at the man behind the desk.

"I've been waiting for you." The man in the chair spoke, turning to face them. As he came to face them fully, they saw who the Commander was, Yoseph Calvert. He used his finger to adjust his glasses before he looked between the two of them. "You two have been chosen to join our special task force. Neuron." He scratched at his chin as he continued, his tone was even and smooth. "We've already cleared your transfers from criminal affairs. This is an order from the UNION itself. Consider it a promotion you can't turn down."

Akira was surprised by this fact. "An order from the UNION?"

Barret chiming in after. "Didn't think we warranted such a response." That was when Max finally had enough and spoke up.

"W-wait a minute, Commander. I'm still the captain around here." He motioned to the both of them. "And these two........ They're my kids. You couldn't'a run this by me before?" It was more than clear he was not happy with these circumstances, yet despite this Yoseph was as calm as ever.

"Desperate times, Max. Captain or not, surely you the position humankind is in." He looked between the twins and Max and continued. "I understand how you must feel, but I need you to be.....flexible." Max looked away, muttering a swear under his breath. Before he turned on his heel and walked away, his gaze locked with the floor. Alicia seemed to follow after him.

Once Yoseph could no longer see Max he continued. "Well then, I'll give you the short explanation." Behind him the screen changed to what appeared to be in orbit of the planet, showing a bright flash on the Earth's surface. "As you know, humanity faces the very real threat of extinction . Most believe this is due to the mass corruption from the gates. But the truth is, there are worse dangers, which the UNION finds prudent to keep classified." The image behind him changed again, this time showing an immense black hole in the earth, with the surrounding area completely red.

"Dangers from beyond the gates. Invaders from a dimension outside our own." The image changed this time to a chimera, a seemingly smaller version of the one they had fought the night before. "Chimeras, like the ones you've just seen for the first time." Several pictures appeared. "They're invisible to the naked eye, but they cast a dimensional shadow in certain circumstances. That's how we were able to detect them in the first place. But still, we were powerless to stop them." He gave a sigh and continued. "Meanwhile the chimeras dragged countless victims back to their dimension. Their corruption tainted the land itself."

Again the image changed this time to an over head view of the Ark. "With most of the planet uninhabitable, we survivors fled here, to this artificial island we call the Ark. We had thought we were safe. And we were, for a while. But as you know all too well, it did not last." More images, this time from the gate openings from the night prior appeared, giving the twins a clearer picture of just how bad things were last night. "At this rate, all of humankind will be pulled into the chimeras' dimension. We're facing down the end of the world. But I refused to accept such a fate for our species! Through blood, sweat, and countless years of research, we finally made it: The ultimate counter-chimeric weapon!"

Barret and Akira gave each other a glance, before looking back to him as he continued. "By neurologically syncing captured chimeras with human operators, we established control. And made powerful allies." The image this time was of what appeared to be Barret's Legion. "I'm referring, of course, to the Legions. The Legions gave you your first look at the dangers we truly face. But also a taste of the pinnacle of human ingenuity! But of course, not just anyone can use them. Only a precious few people have the natural faculties to synchronize with a Legion. People like you."

He looked towards both of them as he continued. "I am quite sure this is a lot for you to process right now, but..... Your species needs you. Your species chose you. The two of you hold the future of humankind in your hands. We're counting on you." His eyes drifted towards Jin. "And now..... I hand you over to him."

Jin smirked as he looked between the two of them. "Well, it's been awhile, huh? Your dad told me you'd joined the police, but, uh.... I never imagined we'd see you here in Neuron. But growing up with Max around, it's no surprise you turned out tough." Jin motioned around the room. "Now that you guys are here, let me officially welcome you both to the team." Putting his hands on his hips he continued. "Man, you should've seen the look on Max's face when he found out you two were coming. But between us, I think he's happy you're here."

"Probably happy he gets to keep an eye on us even when we're at work." Again Akira, jabbed him with her elbow for it. But Jin didn't seem to mind.

"You aren't wrong, but he's likely also happy we have new backup. Before you guys, there were only three of us, but now there's five. There are more candidates waiting for the ARI to make more Legions. The Commander may talk a lot of gloom and doom, but relax, help's on the way, eventually." Again Barret chimed in.

"I'm thankful for the lesson on chimeras, but was the full history lesson on the Ark really needed? Sounded more like he was selling the Legions to us." Before Akira could jab him again, they both heard a chuckle come from behind them, Barret's remark had actually made Yoseph laugh, and he wasn't sure if he should be proud of that, or scared.

"Anyway," Jin said getting his attention. "First things first. It's time to get to know your Legion." He looked over his shoulder, back towards the elevators. "There's a training room downstairs. We'll go there, and work on your fundamentals. I'll call the others." Jin pulled at his radio, likely calling Max, yet received no reply. "Or I would call the others, if Max would pick up. Do me a favor and go get him and Alicia for me, will you? I'm willing to bet you'll find them up on the roof. I'll head down and make sure the training room is set up for the both of you. See you two in a bit." He was just about to leave, when he stopped and turned around. "Nearly forgot. Open up the menu in your Legatus, and you'll find a map of the station. It might come in handy if you get yourselves lost." He handed them their Legatus back.

Jin walked off with a wave as they equipped their Legatus. Barret let his arms fall lax after he was out of sight. "If I had to hold my arms like that any longer they were gonna cramp." To his surprise Akira didn't jab him for that one.

"Man, Jin really hasn't changed a bit, has he?" Akira asked him as she walked ahead of him. Barret shrugged, more to loosen up his shoulders, but to still sort of answer Akira. "How long has it been since we last saw him?" She turned to him, and she saw a small smile on his face.

"Sis, we saw him last night." Again, she jabbed him, hard, in the ribs. "Ohrgh! I deserved that." He muttered clutching his chest.

"You know what I meant you smartass! It's been like two years since we last really got to talk with him." As they waited for the elevator, she continued. "Remember when dad was in the hospital and Jin came to take care of us? His cooking wasn't the greatest, but....." He guarded his chest as he spoke.

"Aki, he managed to burn a pot of water, and broke our microwave." He winced away in case she jabbed at him again, but all she did was sigh.

"He's always been there for us, he managed to keep up with you when you got sick with that cold." Barret kicked his foot against the ground as the elevator doors opened.

"Yeah yeah, Jin's always been willing to help the old man out, guess that translates to us too." Pressing the top most button, he waited next to Akira. The elevator ride wasn't too long, opening up the sunny rooftop. Barret, followed after Akira, never having liked being this high up. Walking onto the heliport they saw both Max and Alicia standing near the edge of the landing pad, Barret decidedly kept Akira and himself from getting closer. Akira noticing the look he gave the ledge of the landing pad.

Alicia took notice of their arrival first, giving them a smile, before poking Max twice in the shoulder to get his attention. Seemingly broken from his thoughts, he turned slightly to see them, before turning back. Alicia decide to at least speak up. "You two need something?"

Akira spoke up. "Uh, Jin was trying to you reach, Dad. He told us to bring you down to the training room."

Alicia nodded at this. "Aha, so that's the call you ignored earlier." She looked over her should before, turning to face Max, her hands on her hips. "So what's the matter, Dad?"

"Look. If I've never changed your diapers, you don't get to call me 'Dad'" His voice was slightly awkward as he addressed Akira. "And neither do you, Akira! Just.... Keep it professional. It's 'Captain' here." He saw Barret giving a salute.

"Yes Captain Dad!" This had Akira chuckling as Alicia actually burst into a short fit of laughs. Max glared at him as he let the salute fall and scratched the back of his head. The look he gave Barret made him know he was in for it when they got home.

Shaking his head, Max got back to the matter at hand. "Anyway, I'm sure Jin can handle your training on his own. There's nothing I can teach that you can't learn from him."

Alicia smirked as she stepped back. "Aw, he's just acting tough." She turned back to the twins. "You guys know he's just worried sick about you, right?"

Max looked beyond exasperated. "Alicia! Why do you keep doing that?!"

Akira actually stepped forward, rather awkwardly at first. "Umm, well..."

Max turned to her. "What?"

Akira continued. "Considering we're gainfully employed adults.... Shouldn't our captain take MORE responsibility for us than our father?" This was something Max was not expecting, neither was Barret, but judging from the smile on his face, he wasn't minding Akira getting one over on their old man. But he knew that now they'd both be in for it when they got home.

Alicia seemed to enjoy what she said as well, judging from her laughter. "it's gonna be FUN having you guys around."

After muttering something Barret only caught a bit off, something something 'teamed up on by his own kids'. He shook his head, and carried on regardless. "Anyway! You two report to Jin for your training. Tell him I'm busy!" With that, Max turned back around to look over the city, the sun high in the sky.

Alicia turned back to them. "That goes for me too. Sorry. But make sure Jin teaches you a lot okay?"

Just as Barret backed away from the ledge, a lot faster than Akira did. "Yes, Ma'am" With that the two of them made for the elevators, Barret ahead of Akira.

"'Ma'am!?" Ugh" Alicia didn't expect to be called Ma'am at her age, she heard Max snickered behind her. "What's so funny!" She shouted at him as she turned back around.

After that, Akira and Barret made their way towards the training room. They found Jin in there searching through a crate. "Yo Jin!" Barret said as he walked in, Akira in tow.

Jin looked up from the crates, holding two cradles from the look of it, the same he, Alicia and Max had. "Bout time you two got here, I take it Max isn't in the mood."

Barret shook his head and shrugged. "Old man just isn't settled with the idea yet. Maybe once I take down one of those huge chimera again, he'll start taking us seriously." He felt Akira flick him in the back of the head. "Ow! Hey, what was that for!"

"We both have to show dad we can fend for ourselves. You running off ahead will just show him how reckless you are." Barret grumbled to himself, as Jin watched the two of them. They hadn't changed all that much from the last time he'd seen them.

"Easy there you two. If you want to spar wait until we finish basic training. Now you both are gonna need these." He handed a cradle to the two of them. Once they had settled with equipping themselves. Jin set about explaining the ins and outs of Legions. Each lesson was exact and to the point, never going on too long. Yet, due to the sheer amount they had to get through, the sun had long since set, by the time they had finished. 

As Barret finished up the last training program, the loudspeaker went off. "Attention, Neuron Officers. the police have requested Neuron's assistance. Please report to the command room." It repeated once more before stopping.

Jin looked up at the speaker. "Well, looks like it's time for your first assignment. I'll go on ahead." Jin made for the door out of the training room, stopping at its threshold. "Don't keep us waiting you two." Jin walked off towards the elevator.

Left by themselves in the training room, Akira walked in front of Barret. "It figures we'd even get transferred to a new department together."

Barret cocked his head to the side. "What? You that eager to get rid of me? I'm hurt." Akira smiled when she saw the smirk he had when he said this. "But ya know what they said, birds of a feather and all that." He waved his hand around idly.

Akira shook her head as she got closer to him. "It feels so weird to be saying this to my brother of all people but...." She held out her hand to it. "Well....Gotta say..... it's nice working with you" He smirked as he took her hand and shook it, before pulling her forward and directly into a hug.

"Partners or not, you're still the same dork of a sister, who always knows how to make things weird." She smiled as he flicked him in the forehead.

"And you're still the same thickheaded wiseass of a brother, who never takes things seriously." He gave a fake gasp of surprise.

"'Never takes things seriously'! I am offended! I have taken things seriously, like all those arcade games I beat you at!" The two shared a laugh, to which Akira quieted down first.

With a sigh she spoke. "Well, it's gonna take a while to get used to all of this. But I'm sure we can show Dad we're up to it! If we work hard, I'm sure he'll come around in no time." She gave Barret a pat on the shoulder before walking off.

As soon as she was out of the sight, the smirk he had fell a bit. "Damn, now I gotta worry about you and the old man. You two never make things easy." He looked down at his Legion, or whatever you would call it while it was in it's cube form. Quickly he summoned his sword Legion, he'd come up with a name later. "You. You understand me?" he looked down to the floor. "Probably not" Looking back at it he continued. "Looks like you and me are gonna be thick as thieves, means you gotta help me keep the old man and Akira safe. You got that?" He pointed at the Legion, it's gaze never breaking his, never moving from its spot. With a defeated sigh, Barret stared into the floor. "Guess not. But better than talking to myself at least." Calling his Legion back, he left the training room making for the command room.

The elevator took longer than he would want, and he was the last one to show up in the command room. His late arrival was pointed out by the bubble gum hair woman behind a podium. She spoke with a sigh. "You're late, newbie!" His old man had told them about her, one Olive Espinosa. Apparently she was in charge with on the field communication with Neuron agents.

She seemed ready to begin whatever she was about to do. "Now that everyone's here, let's begin." She looked over the screen in front of her. "The police in Central City, in Zone 36, have requested our help with a case." She began to type something while she spoke. "About an hour ago, an unusually large amount of gates opened up along Grand Avenue. A lot of gates mean a lot of redshift. The local police are doing the best they can to handle the aberrations. But, again, we're looking at a lot more gates than usual. To say they have their hands full is an understatement . Gates don't just appear like this without a chimera around somewhere. Not in these numbers. There are only five people on the Ark that stand a chance against chimeras, and they're all in this room." She looked up from her screen. "That's way the regular police need your help. Get out there, find the chimera and take it down! I'll let the captain fill you in on the operational parameters."

Max put his hand to his hip. "Roger!"

Olive looked over the five of them. "We aren't sure what this chimera is capable of yet, let alone what it actually is. You'll have your Legions with you, but still, keep your guard up. But don't forget, we can't risk letting any of you go through the gate after it. Do whatever you can on this side, okay?" Swiping something on her screen to finished up. "That is all"

Yoseph gave them the official order. "Neuron, move out!" They all saluted, before making for the roof. For once, Max didn't seem as tense as he had that morning, maybe Alicia had something to do with that. As they stood outside of the helicopter, Max decided to speak up. "Alright, everyone's here. Let's get something straight. We don't know what the hell kinda chimera we'll find out there. Okay, first things first, we'll meet up with the police and get as much info as we can." He looked between Jin and Alicia. "If we happen to meet our mystery chimera, you leave it to me, Alicia, and Jin, got it?" They both agreed, with him turning to the twins.

"Hey, you two. I can't hear you." Akira looked a little bashful.

"Well...... Jin already put us through training, so I thought maybe we could...." Barret picked up what she was getting at.

"What she's getting at is, maybe we could ya know, actually fight this chimera? Get on the job experience when we actually have a clue what we're doing this time?" Barret wasn't really one to beat around the bush.

Max's answer was quick and to the point. "No way! You two are to gather information. No Heroics! Captain's orders, is that clear?" Neither of them were happy with this.

Akira's voice was quite defeated. "But...."

While Barret's was rather irritated. "Hey! How're we supposed to be able to help you guys if we aren't allowed to even fight these things!"

Alicia decided to chime in before things went any further. "Hey, come on, now. Maybe the captain is a teensy bit overprotective. But you're new, and if you bite off more than you can chew, we're all in trouble. It's the right call."

Akira didn't seem to want to give in so easily, but relented. "Roger, Captain." Barret simply grumbled to himself, Akira being able to tell he was not going to let this go.

Max finally continued. "Okay, great. Alright, Neuron, let's roll!"

The flight to Central City wasn't long, but it was quiet, Barret knew better than to talk given his mood, he always wound up saying things he didn't want when his temper was flaring. Max noticed that the helicopter had stopped, or more so was just hovering. as he stood up the door opened, letting Barret see they were still a good distance in the air. He felt his heart drop as he saw Max standing by the open door. The look he gave Akira was all she needed to know. As Max dropped, followed by Alicia and Jin, she decided to help her brother.

"It's going to be fine, remember what Jin said." To this, he began to violently shake his head.

"No! I went to bathroom when he started covering that remember!" She sighed, but wasn't upset with him, she was somewhat responsible for his fear of heights.

She pulled him over to the door and let him see that the others were fine. "We'll be fine from this height, I promise." The apprehension was clear across his face. "How bout this, once we get the time, we get Rästner's, my treat?" He looked at her for a moment.

"You'd better mean it this time, cuz I'll be leaving my wallet home." She gave him a smile and a nod, before he made him step back, letting her jump down.

As he watched his sister fall, he grumbled to himself. "I was not told I'd be jumping out of a damn helicopter this far in the sky." Swallowing his spit, he jumped as well, landing on his knee with a grunt, deciding to ignore the pain quite literally shooting through his leg now, he took his Legatus and slapped it on his wrist. As the others ran forward to start their own investigations, he took a lot around. The place ahead of them was a mess, the bridge apparently having collapsed, to his right he saw two officers talking to each other, and there were others further behind him keeping civilians at bay.

"Alright, let's get to work. Listen up, we've got nothing to go on right now, except that our perp is PROBABLY a chimera. If it IS, we need to know as much as we can before we engage. Time to look for clues." They each began to inspect their own things. "You know what that means, IRISes on, people. First,, let's see if the security cameras caught anything useful. Check their hologram playback."

It took him a moment to remember how to switch on his IRIS, he always hated wearing his contacts, but given the IRIS doubled as a phone, meant he would always browse the internet if he was bored, beats his normal glasses anyway. He wasn't sure how it worked, but everything seemed to be laid out in grids. There were green holograms of people running away, likely due to the collapse. He inspected one of them, Alicia coming over the radio. "Do you think all these people made it out okay?"

"Judging from the distance, they likely started running while the bridge was collapsing, which would mean." He looked around seeing the other holograms looping, Jin coming over the radio to finish his sentence. 

"That unless our chimera made an effort to hunt everyone under the bridge down, they likely made it out fine." Barret walked over to where Akira was standing, directly in front of a massive glowing hand print in the ground, weird red shards floating around it.

"Those weird little crystal things you're seeing, we call that Red Matter. It's solid corruption. It's all around us and thanks to the Legions, now you can see it. Your Legion can clean it up for you. Go on, try it out." Summoning his sword Legion, it seemed almost gravitated towards the Red Matter.

"Trust me, the Legions love this stuff. It's kinda like they eat it, works wonders for keeping them calm too." Jin chimed in, Barret looking over to him from the corner of his eye. His Legion seemed to have cleaned up the Red Matter around the hand print. Finally able to get a good look at the hand print Max spoke up through the radio.

"Hm, what do we have here..... A hand print, huh? Damn big one, too. Between the size and the Red Matter, i think we can say that this isn't a human hand print." Barret stifled a laugh and spoke into his radio.

"It's either that or we're gonna need to ask around to see if anyone's seen someone who wears size Minivan gloves." He stood back up from poking around the strange red hand print. "Provided it is a chimera and not what I had said before. This thing's hands have gotta be gigantic." Giving a thumbs up to Akira, he decided to stop poking around the weird inter-dimensional hand print, and go see if those officers he had seen earlier knew anything. Walking over to them, he decided to ask them. "Hey, sorry to annoy you both with this, but either of you see anything weird when the bridge collapsed?" They both responded with a shake of the head. "Really? Entire damn bridge collapses and you two didn't see a thing?" Shrugging he went to walk away when he heard one of them whispering to the other. "What was that?!" He turned on his heel and pointed at the two of them.

The one whose tone towards him was resentful at the least, spoke up first. "Oh, don't mind us. We wouldn't want to tamper with your investigation." Then the other officer, who sounded skeptical of Barret was next. "You're with Neuron, right? Stick to your jurisdiction, okay?" Barret would've gotten on their cases for their tones when he heard Max come over the radio.

"Barret, come over here, real quick." Barret gave the two officers one last glare before walking over to him. Once he by him, he saw Max's eyes looking towards those two officers. "Couldn't get a word out of those two huh? Local cops sometimes don't like us, afraid it'll look bad if Neuron solves a case on their turf." He looked towards Barret, a smirk at his lips. "Luckily the Legion can help out here. Send it by them while you stay outta sight, should pick up on what they're saying." Giving him a look, he followed along regardless, ducking behind a nearby car, he brought out his Legion, it seemed to stare him down for a moment before he jerked his head over to the two officers. It looked between him and the officers for a solid minute before finally gliding over to them.

It was the damnedest thing, when he heard two voices echo through his mind. It was as if they were reverberating throughout his mind, and they seemed none the wiser for it. The resentful officer was the one speaking. "I don't like it, man. Who do they think they think they are, barging in on our scene like that..." The other officer clearly didn't want either of them to be heard, telling him to quiet down.

"It's those guys from the basement of HQ, Neutron or Neuron or whatever." The skeptical officer said, as he adjusted his stance.

"Never heard of em" The resentful officer said. "Whoever they are, they need to step off quick."

"No argument there" The other spoke. "Coming round our scene, questioning us like we're regular civilians. The nerve of that blonde brat! What, someone got dragged through the gate, and by a giant, shadowy hand? Who'd believe that kinda nonsense?"

The resentful one spoke again. "You're tellin' me. This is nuts. Whole lotta witnesses say they saw it, though. There's gotta be some kinda explanation." They didn't seem to be talking about anything really relevant to the case so he called call his Legion back. That was when his radio went off, Max on the other line.

"Think you've got enough clues? Come on back and we'll talk em out." Shrugging, he walked his way over to his old man. He seemed to be busying himself looking over the debris, only turning when he heard him approach.

"There you are. Looks like you've gathered plenty of info. But let's see if we can't get a grasp of the situation with em. Investigative ability is important, even for Neuron. So don't expect you to go easy on you!" 

Barret crossed his arms. "Would be offended if you did captain, come on! Hit me with the hard questions."

"Right, then let's get started. We need to know exactly what we're dealing with here, everything, right down to how it looks, so there anything that gives away it's physical appearance?" Barre thought for a moment before turning his head towards the large hand print.

"It's hands have gotta be gigantic, what with the size of the mark over there." He jabbed his thumb over to it.

"That's right, there's no way we're dealing with a small chimera here, or at it would be with ridiculous proportions. Next would be why the chimera came through here. I wouldn't bet on it just being here for the sights." His thoughts drifted back to the conversation those officers had.

"From what I heard, it grabbed someone and pulled them through a gate. Sounds like it was trying to be quick about it too. Not even bothering to fully come out." Max nodded along.

"Sounds like that's all we've got to go on so far. A chimera with large hands shows up, wrecks the bridge, and pulls someone through the gate, wherever that leads too." His gaze drifted over to the hand print. "Luck is on our side though. Chimeras usually leave trails behind we can track, Legions can sniff em out like a blood hound. For now, I'll leave it to you and Akira to find those tracks. That hand print should be as good a spot as any to start."

Summoning his Legion, he guided it over to the hand print, which seemed to have the Legion pull on the chain, it let out a small roar, which had the hand print erupt somewhat. Wisps of red trailed from the hand print, down the street. He looked over to Akira, and nodded the two of the following after it. His Legion leading the way, until they stopped at the entrance to a parking garage, where the trail split.

"The trail splits here, seems we might have more than one chimera." He spoke into the radio, looking over he saw Jin and Alicia running over.

"Seems like we'll have to split up. We'll take the tracks that lead down the street, while you and Akira follow the ones through the parking garage." Jin and Alicia, took off down the street, Alicia summoning her own Legion, a very wolf like one, to follow the trail as well. Barret looked over to Akira, before shrugging.

"Seems like we're on our own sis." His voice changed slightly, to a more kidding tone. "Let's hope we don't get ambushed, and take out this chimera by ourselves. Oh, that would be awful~" He broke into a smirk, before finally following after his Legion, which pulled on its chain like a dog just out of reach of a cat. The pair walked through the empty parking garage, following after his Legion, which seemed determined to sniff out the chimera.

"Once we track down this chimera, let's take it out quick and easy. That'll show Dad he doesn't have to worry about us!" Akira looked around the parking garage was they followed his Legion. "Man, the corruption is really bad here." Barret stopped, as his Legion set about cleaning up some Red Matter.

"Sis, you left your radio on." He pointed out, as he glanced over to his Legion, which was looking underneath a parked car for more Red Matter, tugging its chain to get its attention. Frantically, Akira made to turn her radio off as they kept walking. Rounding the corner, that led to the exit to the parking garage, and where the trail was leading, Barret watched as his Legion hovered straight into the half lowered gate. The suddenness of it left it dazed while Barret stifled a laugh. Akira glared at him, before walking over to the gate. Crouching underneath it, she waited for him on the other side.

"Come on Barry, we don't have all night." She heard him start running towards the gate, and half-braced herself for him just running straight into it himself, only for him to slide underneath it in one clean motion, getting immediately to his feet.

"And you told me that wasn't practical." Her gaze went down to his legs, and then met his own.

Looking down to where she was looking, he saw that he had scuffed the hell out of boots. "I now see why you told me wasn't practical." He called his Legion back out. "Doesn't mean I'm gonna stop doing it." He walked off after his Legion, Akira shaking her while trailing after him, opting not to tell him about the fact the back of his pants were all covered in dirt. They found themselves on the direct opposite side of the collapsed bridge. "Everything seems fine, trail ends here it seems." He looked over to his Legion, as it looked around trying to find the trail. He heard the sound of air warping, and looked in front of him, calling his Legion back away from it.

Not a moment too soon either, as a massive form came, quite literally, rolling out of it, directly towards them. They had just enough time to dive out of the way, before they met their gruesome end. It rolled over where they would've been and directly into a car, grinding into it, before it exploded, sending it flying away. It managed to land on its feet, and it's very massive hands. Before standing up straight and letting out a roar. It brought it's hands down hard, its knuckles smashing into the pavement. His IRIS activated on its own, displaying information about the chimera.

Codenamed: Briareos, the only thing he minded about the IRIS' analysis on it was how to handle it, which was a swift and to the point, extermination. The both of them called out their Legions, his Sword Legion charging straight into the fray, stabbing its blades into Briareos' arm, while Akira's fired bolts at it. "A chimera! Hey, look at its hands! That's gotta be the one we're after!" Akira fired her Blaster at it while Barret charged towards it with his X Baton. He was surprised when his baton didn't deflect off of the seemingly thick armor is had. He saw his Legion pry its blades free, before it began to spin, slicing into the chimera.

Briareos reared back its arm, spikes shooting out of its fist, before launching it forward. Barret barely managing to dodge and answer back by stabbing his baton into its arm. This had to affect of him now being flung around while trying to pull his baton free. Lucky for him, he wasn't in much danger of being struck by it given where he was, but now it was flailing wildly trying to knock him free. Akira provided as much help as she could from a distance, her and her Legion doing their best not to hit him while he was stuck. Suddenly, more shots than Akira or her Legion were firing struck the chimera. The other officers that were investigating the bridge collapse had opened fire on the chimera.

"W-what the hell is that thing?!" One of them cried, Barret's Legion coming back to him and stabbing its blades where his baton was stuck, managing to free him, only for him to flung back when Briareos spun.

After getting his bearings, Barret changed to his blaster mode and opened fire. "I thought the Commander said normal people can't see chimeras! What the hell's going on?!" He ducked frantically out of the way of a car being thrown at him.

Akira paused for a moment, activating her IRIS, and scanning the panicked officers. "Their corruption levels are super high......Is that why they can see it?" She dodge out of the way of another car only for her Legion to be struck, flying back due to the hit, dragging Akira by her chain. Seeing this, Barret changed his X Baton back to its baton mode, before charging at the distracted chimera. Using his chimera as a spring, he stabbed his baton into its back, while his Legion back to stab randomly around it's back.

Akira got back to her feet, summoning her Legion back as well. Her gaze drifting over to the officers, as red mist began to overwhelm them. "Redshift!" The change that overcame the officers was immediate. Their bodies warping into Aberrations. "No time to lose. We've gotta do something about this, now!"

"I'll handle this bastard! You keep those guys busy!" Was all he could say, given he was now once again stuck to Briareos. Pulling his Legion to him, he threw it up and over the chimera's head, using the force of it to pull him free. Using the speed of it, he pulled it again, his Legion flying towards him, and than past him, digging its blades directly into Briareos' head. Barret followed after, jamming his baton all the way to the hilt into the chimera's head. It flailed wildly, before it began to slow, eventually collapsing to the ground, and exploding, leaving nothing behind. The death of the chimera seemed to do something to the Aberrations, as they began to convulse before also vanishing into nothing, seemingly unable to exist without the chimera so close.

As he stretched, feeling his back pop for a moment, he looked over to Akira, who looked relieved, but stressed. "Well, we got the chimera..... But we were too late to help them. Maybe Dad was right, we're not ready." Before he could think of comforting his sister, their radios came on with the voice of Jin.

"Jin here! Do you copy? It sounds like a gate just opened up not far from you two." Alicia coming over next.

"We've notified the captain. We're on our way there, too. See you soon. Try and stay outta trouble, okay?" The look on Akira's face changed to one of determination.

"Roger! We're heading to the gate now!" She turned to face him, the determination masking whatever was bothering her earlier. "So that chimera wasn't the target after all.... Come on, let's get going! We can't let anyone else get redshifted!" Just as they made to go to where they were told, Barret noticed the still crackling gate.

"Probably shouldn't leave that out and about." He summoned his Legion, it immediately charging at it, swiping at the rift, to little results. Barret began to shout encouragement as it continued to attack the gate, Akira finally noticing he wasn't beside her. Turning back to see her brother cheering on his Legion. With a look of exasperation on her face, she walked back over

Despite his and Legion's best efforts, the gate was completely unaffected. As Akira walked over, she summoned her Arrow Legion. "Jin went over this when you had to use the bathroom, but basically, the astral chain used to chain the Legions, can trap and chain chimeras. It also works on gates. Watch." She guided her Legion around the gate, while both Barret and his own Legion watched. Once she made a complete circle of the gate, she guided her Legion above the start of the chain. Completely the circle, the chain constricted, seemingly crushing the gate out of existence.

Barret looked at his sister in awe, and judging by the fact his Legion was mirroring his movements, it was as well. She took a step closer to him, flicking him on the forehead, before stepping back. "If you didn't take a bathroom break every 5 minutes you would've known that." He immediately made to defend himself.

"Hey! I only had to go once! Besides, its not like I knew we'd cover all the important things when I had to go to the bathroom." He crossed his arms.

She laughed as she looked around. "That's one less gate for chimera to come through. Let's get back to the search." As they walked off down the street, they did happen across an officer, who somehow failed to notice the immense other dimensional monster not a few yards away, trying and clearly failing to keep two civilians from going at each other. "Ugh, I thought our days of breaking up fights were over...." 

"Special captive monsters from an unknown dimension aside, we are still cops Aki. Breaking up fights, and getting cats outta trees will still be our day to day. Plus." He summoned his Legion to his side, it stared at the two civilians 

Walking over, the nervous officer noticed him approaching. "Alright you two, I think it's time you took a break." Doing exactly as Akira had, he guided his Legion around the two civilians, who didn't even break from their brawl to notice him. With one swift movement, he completed the circle and the chain constricted, trapping both of them in a chain bind. The two quickly lost their balance and fell over. It seemed the two had calmed down, or had passed out, he couldn't tell which. He gave the officer a thumbs up, as said officer made to check up on the civilians. Akira saw that his Legion copied the motion, which was certainly a strange sight to see.

After seeing that the officer could handle it from there, they continued after the trail, only for both him and his Legion to run straight into the wall where it ended. "Argh! Damn chimera monsters, being able to go through walls! That's so cheating!" Akira continued on, Barret pointing at her as he rubbed his nose. "You tell Dad any of this happened, and I will tell everyone at Neuron every single secret I swore never to tell about you." With that said he continued on, his Legion cleaning up what Red Matter they came across.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, they saw another officer firing at another gate. Akira quickly sending her Legion to circle the gate. The officer was caught by surprise when the chain constricted, shattering the gate. "What?! You gotta show me how ya did that! Y-You just moved your hand and there it went!" Barret, gave her a small salute before she ran off down the stairs they came from.

"Man, I forgot we're the only ones who can the Legions, wonder if the Commander would let me use my for tricks when Halloween rolls around?" He kept that last part to himself, but Akira had managed to hear it.

"You're a menace on Halloween normally. I pray he wouldn't even consider it." The pair continued on as normal. They saw some civilians running around the corner, just as two made it safely into the tunnel, the third wasn't as lucky as they were snatched by a large floating hand, that appear suddenly from a gate, before pulling them in and vanishing. "There's our target! We don't have time to lose!" Akira took off running, Barret not far behind. Just as they got to where the gate once was, upon a higher area, another gate opening, the same hand grabbing another civilian and pulling them in with ease.

"This one's fast! We gotta move." Quickly they ran into another tunnel walkway, rounding the corner to go up, they found more civilians under the throes of redshifting, the change was as fast as the officers before. "Damn it! There's no time for this, let's put em outta their misery before the kidnapped ones wind up the same!" His Legion charged the aberrations, quite literally carving through them. He felt almost happy that aberrations exploded into data, otherwise fighting aberrations would get a lot more messy. Akira's Legion and her blaster tore into a few aberrations, leaving dazed as Barret slide in landing a solid blow to one of their heads, destroying it, while his Legion effectively clotheslined the other two with its blades, destroying them as well.

As Akira ran ahead, Barret barely had time to pull her out from underneath the immense chimeric hand that appeared in front of them, trying to crush her. "Careful! Running off like that is not the best idea sis!" He quickly changed his X Baton to a blaster, landing 6 shots into the hand, it seemingly recoiling due to the pain. He gave his sister a slap on the back. "Come on! I wanna see ya put a few of your Legion's bolts through its eyes" She gave him a nod, before the two took off again. Quickly, they found another group of redshifting civilians. This time, Akira and Barret's Legions finished them the moment they changed, the twins taking off across a small bridge.

After they crossed it, they came across another group of civilians, this time, they weren't redshifting, but were under attack by redshifted aberrations. "Damn!" Barret sicced his Legion on the aberrations, managing to knock them away from the group as he and Akira ran to guard them, blasters at the ready. As their Legions began to deal with the aberrations, they both opened fire, dealing with the group quickly. Yet, they had no time to rest as even more aberrations swarmed them. A gate, as well, opened in the ground, a chimera looking like Laius appeared. It appeared to be readying a charge at the civilians, only for Barret to inadvertently counter it. His Legion had charged the aberration closest to the chimera, while he held tight on the chain. Just as he made to call the Legion back, the chimera rushed forward, catching itself on the taut chain. As to not be dragged by their shard chain, both Barret and his Legion pulled as well. The end result being the chimera being launched into the air, met by a barrage of shots from Akira's Legion.

Akira aimed a well placed shot on the chimera, destroying it. Barret and his Legion backed her up, his Legion managing to destroy three aberrations that attempted to attack while she was distracted, while Barret managed to fend another three off with his baton. Yet, another chimera appeared, this one managing to get a swipe at Akira, her chest armor managing to take the blow. Barret answered back with his own attack, sliding directly underneath the chimera, managing to bring it to its knees with a solid blow from his baton. It looked up towards him, only to met with the barrel of his blaster. Not another second went by before the chimera was reduced to nothing. 

From what he could see, Akira and his own Legion's had dealt with the remaining aberrations. Now they were only left with wounded survivors. Akira had made sure none of them were gravely wounded, but it was clear they were in no condition to move beyond here. She turned to him. "This doesn't look good...... But there might be more survivors out there." She turned back to the civilians, her Legion at the ready. "I'll stay here with them. You go check the alleys and see if anybody ran that way! Once I know that these people are safe I'll catch up with you."

Barret smirked giving a small salute. "Roger Dodger. I won't be gone too long. Make sure to tell the old man how we kicked those things asses while I'm gone." He took off down the alley, his radio coming to life, with Olive on the other side.

"Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, something up?" He made sure nothing was out of the ordinary, despite all of the chimeras and aberrations, and buildings on fire behind him.

"I'm picking up a really strong signal near your location!" Her voice was clearly worried. "Keep your guard up, okay?" He nearly nodded in confirmation, the thought of the fact she couldn't see him right now made him stop.

"No worries. Doubt anything could get the drop on me. But I'll be sure to keep an eye and ear out." With that he continued down into the alley. until he came across a rather open area.

"Okay? Nothing's here, but" He continued to look around the area. "I have the strangest sense of foreboding." The entire area seemed to almost glitch, a red tint overtook most of what he could see. Then, the familiar tearing of space filled his ears, from directly below him.

"W-what the!" He couldn't finish his sentence, as the wind was knocked from him as an immense chimeric hand grabbed him. Pulling him into the gate as he screamed.

Akira could feel that something was wrong, she didn't want to send him ahead, but she couldn't just leave these people by themselves. She heard something akin to a howl echo the air, fearing more chimera, she summoned her Legion, only to see that it was Alicia, and her Beast Legion. Jin and Max were rounding the corner across the bridge when Alicia stopped in front of her, getting off from riding her Legion. "Good to see you alive kid." She smirked as she walked over, calling her Legion back as she did.

"Alicia!" She went over as Jin and Max crossed the bridge as well.

"Olive told us where to find you. Getting here wasn't a walk in park. Had a run in with a Laius." Jin crossed his arms as he looked over to the wounded civilians. He reached for his radio, likely calling in for medical evac.

Max looked around his face was tense. He went over and grabbed Akira by her shoulders. "Where'd Barret get off too. I thought I had told you two to stick together."

Akira defended herself. "We did! But we didn't want to run the risk of there being more survivors, so I had sent him ahead to check the alley." They heard Jin make a noise of shock getting both of their attentions. Olive's voice coming across all of their radios.

"I-I lost sight of Barret! His vitals and location have gone dead too!" Akira could feel her heart stop. The feeling, only could be described as absolute dread filled her entire being. This, this couldn't be happening.

"Olive! What the hell are you saying, where was he last!" Max demanded into his radio, the looks on Jin and Alicia's faces painted a clear picture of worry.

"He was not far from you! Just down a nearby alley, I warned him about a really strong signal near the alley. He said he'd be careful, but!" Her frantic voice made it clear she was as worried as they were. "It had to have been the chimera they were tracking! It must've dragged him into a gate!"

Before any of them could react to such information. Max shouted. "Where's the nearest damn gate!"

He had probably listed off every single word his old man had told him and Akira to never say in the time it took for whatever the hell had grabbed him to fully drag him through the gate. Now he was careening through the air, trapped in a vehicle sized fist, about to slam directly into the ground. Striking the ground, the fist exploded, sending him flying. Tumbling like a can kicked by a rocket, he only barely managed to get to his feet to avoiding fall off the platform he landed on.

He saw the fist that had grabbed him rocket passed him. Before it, for lack of a better term, reconnected with its body. A being that looked a lot like Jin's own Arm Legion, except red and black, and not very friendly looking. His IRIS came on and gave its analysis of the target.

Codename: Enceladus. He'd have to ask the Commander how these names were assigned when he got back, if he got back that is. It was quite clear it wanted to fight him.

"So that's how it is huh! Drag me here looking for a fight, but too cowardly to fight without home field advantage!" He summoned his Legion, it seemed to react strange to wherever the hell he was, but it still seemed more interested in killing the chimera. With a motion of his hands, he egged the chimera on. "Then come on! I'll beat you too! You are NOT splitting my family up!"

The chimera charged, Barret sent his Legion to the opposite direction to rolled to. Pulling the chain taut, the chimera rammed directly into it. Doing his best to dig his feet in, he and his Legion struggled to keep the chimera from breaking through. A surge of strength rushed through him, and with one firm pull, the two sent Enceladus flying. It slammed into the platform, not moving. Barret didn't buy it, and neither did his Legion, as it immediately plunged its blades into the chimera's back, as he set about beating it with his baton. Despite their efforts, it managed to recover, Barret having to recall his Legion to avoid having it smacked away by the hands of the chimera. Using its lack of legs, it floated out of his range, and aimed its fingers at him. before red beams launched from them, tracing along the ground.

"You have lasers too! That is so not fair!" He rolled out of the way of them. Changing to his blaster, he managed a few shots before the chimera launched itself at him again, only managing to roll out of the way thing time. His Legion reappeared, slashing the front of the chimera violently. It managed to dodge a swing from the chimera, as Barret closed the gap, using his baton, he stabbed at the chimera. Yet, unlike Briareos, he didn't managed to wedge it into the chimera. Dodge a slam of its fists, he launched his Legion at it again, only for it to get back handed away. And he wasn't sure what had hit him from the attack, but he felt pain across his entire chest, as if he was the one struck. 

His Legion recovered quickly, managing to stab one of the fists away, long enough for Barret to roll out of the way of the next. The chimera began to float for a moment, holding it's hands out, before beams came its fingers again. It began to spin, making the entire field into a lethal laser light show. Barret saw his moment, and took it. He dashed for directly underneath to chimera, the only place the beams couldn't reach. Sliding, he just narrowly avoided a beam that would've taken his head off.

Using his baton, and his Legion, he decided to try something. His Legion plunged its blade directly into the opening beneath the chimera. It let out an intense roar of pain as it began to fall. Waiting a moment too long, it felt as if he could feel the weight crushing his Legion. He wasn't told the link also translated pain, and if he was told he'd forgotten about it. Recalling his Legion, he dove for the front of the chimera, it barely had time to see him when he, with as much force as he could muster, plunged his baton square between its eyes. It dropped silent the second he did.

He waited a moment, and then another, and several moments. He could barely catch his breath, opting instead to kick the thing several times, before he even tried to pull the baton free. Eventually he did pull it free, when his leg started to get sore to be precise.

Just as he closed his X Baton and turned away, the chimera struck. Grabbing him once again and acting as if nothing he had done had mattered. All he could do was throw whatever swear he had heard from his old man at it as he could as it flew them both higher into the air. Once it stopped, it reeled its arm back and threw him, harder and faster than he had dealt with when it first dragged him here. He could barely think, he summoned his Legion and hoped that would be enough. He struck his Legion hard enough to send them both crashing to the ground. Sparks flew as they skidded, the Legion keeping his body from the most harm. Barret was flung from the Legion as it came to a stop. His entire body hurt, and he saw the Legion vanish, the force of catching him likely too much for it.

He barely had it in him to look up and watch as it charged two blasts from its shoulders. "God.....damn.....it" He struggled to even get that out. Time seemingly slowing down as it fired. As he braced himself for it, to his surprise and relief it never came. Looking up, he saw the familiar form of the man who raised him. Holding his Axe Legion in front of him, with it acting a shield. "Old....man?"

Max turned his head to face him. "Not.....today!" Max willed his Axe Legion to repel the attack, and with a swing of its namesake axe, it did with ease. It was then belted with powerful blasts. Akira appearing with her Arrow Legion, unleashing bolt after bolt at the chimera, each staggering it. He then saw Alicia's Beast Legion charging in, leaping off of the fist sent its way, and biting into its chest. While it was stunned by the attack, she called her Legion back, just as Jin sent his own in.

The Arm Legion's blows were a force of nature all their own, the final blow alone sent the chimera flying. Max sent his Legion at it one last time. The force of the swing, cleaving the immense chimera clean in half, destroying it.

He had managed to get himself at least sitting upright, despite the pain in his everything. He gave his best smile out of fear of the chewing out he was going to get.

"When I heard you'd gotten pulled through the gate, I damn near lost it. Good thing you held it off as long as you did.." He wiped his forehead. "Jesus, you're gonna be the death of me ya know that?"

Akira helped him back to his feet, taking note of just how roughed up he looked. "Well, I can't say you look GOOD.... But damn, you're tougher than I thought." He raised an eyebrow at her, and was going to say something, when Alicia beat him to the punch.

"Ok? Yeah, that's a pretty cool line, coming from someone who just damn near cried their eyes out." This seemed to break through Akira's defenses, and she quickly tried to answer back.

"I-I was not crying!" Only for Barret to embrace her in a tight hug.

"Awww! My little sister was worried about me!" She began to struggle to get out his embrace, the beating he had suffered clearly doing nothing to stop him from embarrassing his sister more.

"Let go, Let go! You're only older by 3 minutes!" Jin decided to get them to calm down.

"Hey,, guys, guys..... Look around. Who would've thought the gates led to a place like this?" He turned around and Barret finally got a good look of where he wound up. He couldn't quite explain it, the sky had what he could only say was a wall of black cubes, so immense and likely equally numerous that the thought alone made his mind hurt, all of it brimming with a hellish red light. Along with that everything, save for intense crystal like spikes of corruption, was a cube of some sort. They weren't perfect cubes, many with rough edges. But they were everywhere, from the ground they walked on to floating, and some cases soaring above them.

He's never been one to think of what hell might look like, but this is definitely going to be up there. It seems his old man had much the same idea. "You ever get the feeling you're somewhere you're not supposed to be?"

Barret shrugged. "I think this place counts as one you weren't even suppose to know existed let alone be." He looked as another cube floated by. "This place is gonna be haunting my dreams for awhile." They're radios soon went off. When they answered, it was nothing, but garbled static. It took a few moments, but the voice on the other end started to come in clearer and clearer.

"Ah! Gotcha!" it was Olive, somehow, someway she was able to get the radios to work even in another dimension, Barret would have to thank someone for that when they got back. "Oh, gosh.... Thank god you're all alive. Geez, I thought I'd never see any of you again! But.... I'm glad you're all okay." Barret scratched the back of his head before wincing, he was certainly going to be sore for awhile. "Okay, now, if you set up the radio channel from that side, I can get through to you. And, the multiscanner works, too. The visuals are pretty noisy, but they'll do in a pinch." She paused to get a good look at what they were seeing. "So that's it, huh? the chimeras' home turf."

Jin seemed to agree with her awe. "Wouldn't have ever thought this is what it looked like. You think the Commander knows about this place?" Alicia shook her head while Barret shrugged.

"If he did I would think there would be a whole lot more than 5 Legions." was all he said as Olive came back over the radio.

She was definitely surprised by something. "Heads up, I'm picking up sign of life nearby! I can't get a read on any IDs, but I think it might be some missing people! Switch on your IRIS and check it out!" Akira seemed to remember something.

"Actually, while we were chasing it, that chimera did grab some people, maybe they're still alive." Max seemed to agree.

"Alright, people, let's go!" Before any of them could get moving, they were struck with a sudden feeling. It felt as if there was an ever increasing weight on their entire body.

"I can't even begin to imagine what we might find here. We are in absolutely uncharted territory." Barret looked over and saw that both Jin and Max weren't as double over as Alicia was.

Max looked over to Jin. "If we're freaked out, think of how those civilians must feel. Time to gut it out, people." The group waited for Alicia to get to her feet, before they made for the direction of the signal. He couldn't tell if the pounding in his head was the from beating he took, or from whatever this dimension was doing to him.

Olive came over the radio again. "Listen That heavy feeling, that's a symptom of redshift. Not to scare you, but all of your corruption levels have been steadily climbing ever since you went through the gate. The good news is, none of you are in the danger zone yet. Maybe you have the Legions to thank for that. Though, worse case scenario, you might find your Legion sync levels dangerously low. Check on those bio signatures, then get out of there as fast as you can. I'll keep an eye out for a gate you can use."

Max confirmed they knew, before Barret spoke. "Godforsaken thing got the drop on me. Now I dragged you all into this." Alicia seemed to hear him muttering this.

"Kid, don't go blaming yourself for this, that chimera was grabbing people wherever it could. From what I heard you had done pretty well for your first day." She tried to raise his spirits a bit, but it seemed like he was more focused on the situation he believes he got them into.

"Barret, I don't want to hear you blaming yourself for this, that goes for you too, Akira. We couldn't have known this would happen, and no training would've prepared any of us for this. What matters now is finding those civilians and getting outta here." Max ended the conversation there, as they were nearly upon the location of the signals Olive picked up.

They spotted the civilians, rushing over to them, the aura of redshift around them, but they hadn't changed yet. Jin relayed the information at hand back to Olive. He wasn't entirely listening, given the pounding headache, but he did get the gist, they weren't going to change, but they'd need to get them out of there fast, Max giving the order. Now, all they had to do was leave, but as always it was not simple, Olive couldn't pinpoint a gate to use to get out of there. Meaning they had to retreat back to where they started and hope for better luck there.

Before they could leave, the sound of the strange cubes that housed Legions was heard, but it wasn't coming from any of them, but from directly behind them. Two cubes, these ones red in place of the blue their own were, floated in the air. Before, around the cubes, began to form physical bodies.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Jin was clearly not in the mood to be fighting, before both he and Alicia fell to their knees.

"This....this is bad...... We're almost out of time....." Max turned to see that they were all in bad shape, if they started fighting now, they could be hurt beyond recovery. He turned to Akira.

"You keep everyone safe, okay?" Turning slightly towards Barret, he continued. "You come with me. Let's take these bastards out." Max charged them with his gladius, his Axe Legion appearing and swatting one in the shield, sending it back. Barret managed to summon his Sword Legion, but, along with his struggling to keep together, his Legion was acting strange. It wasn't charging at the chimeras as it once did, but now was more so just pulling violently on the astral chain. When it did decide to attack, it was only when a chimera took a swing at it. Barret could barely keep up, his baton swings weren't as forceful as they were against the other chimera, even Max was barely keeping it together.

He heard Max swear as his legs gave out. He couldn't quite hear what Akira had said, he was more focused on the pounding in his head, and why everything was getting so blurry. In the time it took him to be able to focus his eyes on something, he found himself on his knees, red sparks shooting from his Legatus. "A fatal error has occurred" The same phrase could be heard echoing from the others' Legatus as well, but it was more garbled and broken. Before he could even ask what was happening, his Legatus disconnected from his arm, and flew over in front of him. The now red core was forming his Sword Legion, but something was very wrong. Everyone else's Legions appeared as well, pulling violently on their astral chains, the others barely able to keep them in control. Yet, his was no longer pulling at the chain, it just stared him down.

Meanwhile, in the Neuron HQ, Olive was panicking at what she was seeing. "What's going on?! Commander!" Yoseph was getting a good view of what was happening, his voice strong and commanding, fitting for his role.

"Olive, the override release command! Hurry!" Olive quickly input the command, but from the crimson warning alerts across her screen it didn't work.

"No use! The override release isn't going through!" This clearly caught the Commander by surprise.

"That's impossible...." His voice was filled with shock.

It had been a tense moment, the Legions standing opposed to their users. When, the Sword Legion began to tense up, the red sparks flying, as the same red tint from before he was pulled in began to cover the Legion. It only took a moment before the tension to snap, and along with it, the astral chain that bound the two together. As the Legatus returned to him empty, the Neuron Police coloring of the Sword Legion shifted, into a sinister red and black, the same coloration of the chimera that started this. The other Legions broke free as well, their colors warping as well. Soon all of them were left without their Legions, forced to face them down now.

His own Legion stared him down, before it charged at him. He braced himself, but was surprised to find it dodged over him, doubling back and slicing clean through one of the chimera they had been fighting. Before moving with frightening speed and precision, and cleaving the other one as well. Leaving only Neuron and their former Legions.

His Legion let out a garbled roar, before it glared him down. Barret was now sick and tired of this, and forced himself to his feet. "I am not dying here, and if I have to beat you up so I can make you follow through with helping me, I bloody well will!" He charged his Legion X Baton at the ready. Despite its speed, he managed a few strikes before it dodged away, letting out a roar as three spinning blades appear around it.

"This is an....." Yoseph's voice was heard over the radio. "Unprecedented situation." Barret dodged underneath the whirling blades to get some swings in on his Legion. "Perhaps the environment beyond the gates has caused some aberration in the Legion cores..." Switching to his blaster, he opened fire. Each blast peppering the Legion, yet it didn't seem to do much to bother it.

Alicia's voice rang out next, as she did her best to fend off her now hostile Beast Legion. "We can't hold up much longer! Olive, Commander, do something!" He managed to dodge a close swipe at him, responding by kicking the Legion in the chest and smashing his baton against its head.

Olive's voice was clear in his ears. "Commander, there's gotta be something we can do to save them!" He could see that Jin barely managed to dodge the beastly punches his Arm Legion threw at him.

"Do something! Now!" He felt another swing barely miss his head, answering his Legion with another barrage of blasts point blank.

"Try setting your Legatus to Mode-C. You may be able to recapture them." Max was able to repel his Axe Legion's blows with his Gladius, but it was clear he was struggling.

"How do we do that!" He managed to get out before he had to repel another brutal blow.

"You'll have to weaken the Legions first. Though I suppose that's easier said than done." Barret managed to keep pace with his Legion, striking whenever and wherever its attacks missed, yet unlike him, it didn't seem to be slowing down.

"Well, if don't have any other ideas...." Max managed to catch his Legion in the chest with a brutal strike, buying him some time. "Looks like that's our only option!" He wasn't sure how many times he struck his Legion, or how many times he had to dodge what would be a lethal blow. All he knew was, he managed to stagger the Legion with one solid strike, leaving it stunned and dazed.

Taking this chance, he activated this Mode-C in his Legatus. It spun up and launched at his Legion. It spun at such speed around the Legion, it kept it from moving. As he struggled to get the Legatus under control, he saw that the others were being overwhelmed by their Legions. Max's heavy armor was left nearly destroyed by one solid blow from his Legion, and Alicia couldn't keep up with her Legion's speed.

Everything became blurry again, his vision filled with some kind of static, as he watched his own Legion struggle against his Legatus. Jin couldn't dodge anymore of his Legion's attacks, barely scrapping by as it slammed at him. His ears were ringing, everything sounding faint and muffled. He saw that Akira was trying to capture her own Legion, yet despite her efforts, it broke free, and sent her to her knees.

Everything fell silent, it was as if the entire world beyond him was muted. His eyes met his Legion, which, despite its struggling against the Legatus, met his gaze. He then heard a voice echo through his mind. It was his own.

_"Looks like you and me are gonna be thick as thieves, means you gotta help me keep the old man and Akira safe. You got that?"_

**'Why'**

A voice that was not his own echoed through his mind, forcing him to look directly at his Legion, the pain in his head fading.

**'Why, would I help you. I was created as a weapon, yet you seem to be akin to me. Why do you want me to help you protect those people so badly?' **The voice asked him.

He wasn't sure what was happening, but he was determined to answer.

_'Because, I'm too weak by myself.' _Was his answer

**'Too weak? You have managed to weaken me enough to try and reclaim me, yet you believe yourself weak?'** It's tone was almost confused. **'You asked of me to aid you, but I see no reason to.'**

_'I'm not strong enough to protect them.'_ He answered back. _'By myself I can go toe to toe with you, but I don't care what happens to me! I promised myself that I would make a world where both the old man and Akira would be safe. But I'm too weak by myself, too weak to protect anything I care about.'_

His Legion, or what he believed to be his Legion was silent for a moment. **'You believe my strength to be what you need? That together, we would be able to protect what you hold dear?'**

_'I hope, that's all I can do, until I prove it. I can only hope, that you and I would be able to protect them!'_

Again his Legion fell silent, but answer clear as day. **'Very well, but even if I were to join you, as we were, we would not be enough. We must become more.'**

_'How do we do that?'_

**'Simple, we become more than master and slave.'**

Barret pulled the chain taut, a burst of energy left the Legatus. His hair, once an intense blonde color, now an intense and sharp blue. Crack like veins trailed his face to just under his eyes, which now glowed the same shade of blue as his hair, both showing clear as day against the red of this other realm. As the chain was pulled taut, the Legatus snapped tight around the Sword Legion's neck, returning to its previous Neuron color. Its eyes glowing an equally intense blue. As it returned to him, it circled him. He dragged his X Baton across the astral chain, blue energy began to cover the baton, what appeared to be blue version of the intense crystals of corruption he had seen before, forming and deforming around it. He had reclaimed his Legion, his ally.

**'Now, let us see what we can do'**

The other Legions, no longer focused on their former users, charged at him. The Arrow Legion launched a barrage of shots at him, dodging with ease as his Legion charged at it. Its blades slashing at the Legion. "What the hell's with your hair?" He could hear Max ask, loud and clear. He dodge another barrage of arrows and he closed the gap between him and the Arrow Legion. He dealt several blows to it, in sync with his own Legion. He felt a strange burst of energy between them as he grabbed the astral chain, and swung it, his Legion using its blades to slash the Arrow Legion across the chest. "That's just like before...."

Alicia could only watch as Barret fought off the rogue Legions. "W-What....What's going on...." The Arrow Legion spun wildly, firing off its arrows everywhere, but failed to hit either him or his Legion, the pair charging at it again. Olive spoke through the radio, just as he and his Legion began to beat down the Arrow Legion.

"The Legion sync rate is...... it's off the charts!" He leapt into the air and slammed down, using the chain to have the Sword Legion down the same. This had the Arrow Legion fly off, as the Arm Legion dove in. It was met with the Sword Legion stabbing into its chest while Barret blasted at its flailing arms.

"A true Legionis! Yes......." His Legion pulled on the chain, having Barret fly towards them. It pulled back just in time to allow Barret to land several blasts directly in the Arm Legion's face. "Wonderful!" Yoseph sounded overjoyed as Barret laid into the Legions.

"Whatever's going on, now's our best chance.... Gotta do this while their distracted......" Max called out to the others, while Barret was busy. "Get those civilians to safety, now!" The Arm Legion fled as the Beast Legion joined the fray. His Legion and the Beast Legion clashes, its blade in its teeth. "Jin! Alicia! Go!" Max looked towards Akira, who couldn't look away from what her brother was doing. "Akira! Let's back up Jin and Alicia and find us a way outta here! Come on!" He grabbed her arm, finally getting her attention. He saw that she didn't want to just leave him.

"Y-Yes sir!" She relented following after Jin and Alicia, with Max not far behind, constantly looking over his shoulder, a grimace on his face as he watched his son fight 4 Legions by himself.

Barret and his Legion managed to force the Beast Legion to retreat as well, the Axe Legion joining in its place. Against the Axe Legion, it didn't seem affected by their strikes as much as the others were. It was a lot slower than the others, but its attacks left the very ground shaking. As they fought against the Legion, one resounding clash between them, had the very ground cracking beneath them, which spurred the other Legions to attack at once.

"What, afraid you're gonna lose so you need to gang up on me!" His shouting wasn't achieving much, but he was holding his own.

**'I'm afraid shouting at them isn't working.'**

"Ya don't think I know that? It made me feel better a little bit so there!" He dodged a clawed swiped at him by the Beast Legion. Despite their efforts, a 4 on 1 battle wasn't going to end well for them. Soon the rogue Legions surrounded him, his hair returning to its normal blonde as he recalled his Legion. With the roar of the Beast Legion, all four of them lunged at him. Striking with unrivaled force, they had missed him, having dodged at the last second. Yet, the sheer force of the strike fractured the platform. Having the rogue Legions fall into the abyss below them, and forcing Barret to run for his life. The ground beneath giving way just before he reached a safe platform.

He could only watch as his escape route got further and further away as he fell.

A sudden burst of astral energy.

**'I think not'**

The Sword Legion rocketed out and around the debris fall, reaching the platform in moments, before giving the chain a pull with such force, it pulled Barret out of the abyss and to safety, landing on his feet like nothing happened. The crack like veins now covered a good portion of his face, yet were not disfiguring.

"Couldn't have done that sooner?" Barret felt his heart pounding in his chest.

**'Possibly, but you would've needed to call me first. I can only bring myself out if your life is in mortal danger. I would prefer not dying as well'**

"Great, now let's get the hell outta this damn place!" Quickly he sent his Legion forward, it pulled him along to another further off platform. The two quickly made their way across the rapidly exploding remnants of the platform they were once on. Reaching a safe place, that wasn't currently exploding. The force of the impact of the rogue Legions seems to caused more than just where he was.

The others were going as fast as they could, avoiding where the ground beneath cave in and fell away. Max was leading them, they were nearly back to where they had started. Yet, due to the constant collapse, Akira fell behind, trying to not fall through the many holes in the bridge, stumbling as the ground beneath crumbled away, just barely able to grab hold of the stable platform they arrived on.

The grip she had faltered, as the edge of the platform crumbled underneath it. She fell back, time slowing as Max noticed, running as fast as he could possibly could. Sliding to the edge, he reached his hand out to grab her's and missed, but mere inches. Neither could do anything as she fell.

He wasn't sure how he had gotten there, but he made it back to the first platform as fast as he could. He had seen his sister falling, and on command, his Legion was rocketing towards her, first leaping directly above Max and Jin, before diving down with great speed towards Akira Returning its arm to normal, it grabbed her, and Barret, with great force and grace, spun on his heel and yanked the chain back. The Legion and Akira rocketing into the sky, up and over Barret before landing safely in front of them.

**'It would seem your hunch was correct.' **The Legion let Akira go, her falling to her knees. Barret recalled his Legion as he walked over to her, holding his hand out for her to take. She took it and he helped her to her feet, as the others got closer. Max looked him in the eye and gave him an affirmative 'hmph', the others walking passed him as they made their way towards the gate they came here through. 

Yet, they would not be allowed to leave unbothered, as the sound of the Axe Legion landing behind them alerted them to the fact that the Legions had converged on them again.

"Honestly these things don't know when to quit!" He made to summon his Legion again, only for Max to speak.

"I'll keep em busy." This caught all of them off guard. He gave a sigh and addressed them. "Listen to me, we don't have time. The Legions are the very last hope humanity's got. And today we lost all of 'em, except yours. We can't risk losing that too."

No, no, no, he could not be telling him to just leave. "Old man, what the hell are you talking about!" Akira as well cutting in.

"Captain! Let me help you!" Max could only sigh and put his hand on her shoulder as he walked past her.

His face went grim as he turned and spoke. "Jin!" Jin nodded, in grim acceptance of what his captain planned to do, walking over and giving him his X Baton. Walking away from Max, Jin took Akira's arm, and began to drag her away.

"Jin! What're you?! Let me go! Let me GO!" She could only reach out for him, her voice pleading, begging for him. "Dad!.....Dad!" Alicia having to help bring her back.

The rogue Legions were closing in. Barret couldn't just let this happen, he couldn't! "Damn it Old Man! What the hell's your problem?!" Max turned to face Barret, seeing tears down his face.

"I'm not letting you two die because of me." Was all he said.

"Then why won't you let me help you for once! I managed to hold them off before! If you hurry, you can still make it out, I'll be fine!" He had to convince him, there had to be something, anything.

"You and Akira, always want to make sure I never had to go it alone. I can't let myself be the reason either of you got killed, if there was even a chance it would get you killed I would refuse!" Max turned back to him. "You're strong, you've always been strong, but you've never been all that good at listening." The Axe Legion seemed to be readying something, time was running out, why wasn't he listening.

"I promised you, you and Akira, that I would protect you. No matter what, ever since you were born. This old man meant every word." Barret felt his face grow wetter. "I'm not going to let this kill you, either of you. And besides." He turned back to face Barret, a sorrowful smile on his face. "Don't you think its time I let you both grow up?"

He couldn't stop himself, he was crying, the vision of his father blurring. Why? Why couldn't he just let him help? Why did this have to hurt so much?

"Dad!" Max gave him one last look, this time of surprise, that changed into some form of comfort. "Please! Please tell me this is some kind of bad dream! Why?!"

He hadn't called him dad since he was 7, he wasn't sure where he had learned to call him old man, but he didn't let it bother him. Before he could give him any comfort, the Axe Legion charged, Max changing both X Batons to Gladius form. They're clash nearly knocked Barret off his feet.

Max turned his head just enough, so he could hear him. "Don't worry. I'll be back. I promise." He repelled the attack, managing to knock the Legion back. Giving him just enough breathing room. "Go. And remember what happened here. It'll make you stronger." The Beast Legion tried to attack the distracted Barret was met by Max opening fire with a blaster. He turned back to face the Legions, face whatever fate awaited him head on. "You're the one who's gotta save the world now.....But for now.... Just do me one favor." The Arrow and Arm Legion's attacked next, Max blasted apart the the arrows that were fired, and deflected the energy blasts from the Arm Legion, back at them. Yet, it had winded him.

"Your sister.....Akira" He turned and stared down the Legions. "Keep her safe......you.....you got it?"

"Do that for me." He changed both his weapons to their Gladius forms.

"Dad...." His voice was choked in his throat, something that always had him wake from his bed in tears was happening, this was real. God, why did it have to be real.

"Remember, I love you." Max readied himself to charge the Legions. "GO!"

Every fiber of his being fought against him, begged and pleaded with him to go help him, to go help the man who has raised them, who had dealt with all their nonsense for 20 years. To help the man who he called dad, but all he could do was close his eyes tight and run the opposite direction. His Legion silent to it all. Max charged, going towards the Legions regardless of the risks.

Barret was flung free of the gate, his Legion not far behind, snarling as it left the gate. His Legion was recalled, his hair returned to normal, as he dragged himself off of the ground and to his feet. Jin was checking one of the civilians, while Alicia was holding Akira back. Though, Akira managed to break free of her, and try to get to the gate, only for Jin to stop her. "Let go! LET ME GO!"

"Akira!" Jin forced her to look at him, his voice nearly as pain filled as her's. "Do you want to lose the captain for NOTHING?"

The weight of it all finally came to her, her voice broken in sorrow. "But....Dad...." She fell to her knees, Alicia and Jin by her side, her sobs of anguish filling the air.

A pain unlike any other filled his mind, conflicting thoughts, echoing across his head. The pressure was too much, it hurt, everything hurt. Everything was going blurry, the pain brought him to his knees, Alicia's gaze drifting over to him, seeing him in the throes of an unimaginable pain. It was all too much, too quickly. He fell over, losing consciousness before he had even fallen over. There was only one last thought that crossed his mind before it all went dark.

**'Forgive me, I have failed you'**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah not gonna lie, while this was a pain to get finished, I love it. The final section was probably my favorite and least favorite part to write for certain reasons


End file.
